Autumn Brown 1/20/21 Autumn Brown 1/20/21

White Danger

White Danger: Double-Mindedness, Violence, and the Confusion of Whiteness

“I guess I just don’t understand what boundaries are.”

I remember the exact location, the light, the positions of our bodies in space, when a white man said these words to me. He had a pattern of violating boundaries and agreements, and would frequently admit those violations while simultaneously claiming confusion that the boundaries and agreements even existed. When confronted with this pattern, he belligerently denied any capacity to understand his own behavior.

For me, it was a revelation. I will always be grateful for this lesson.

It has been many years, but I often think of this moment when I consider the danger posed by white people, and by white men specifically, to people of color, and to Black people especially. I am seasoned enough by living to know that the white people to fear are not only those who arm themselves, but also those who believe themselves to be disarmed. I have learned that this type of white person is, in certain regards, infinitely more dangerous because they believe themself to be incapable of causing harm, and in fact separate from harm doers.

Some people are more dangerous because they believe themselves to be benign. Those of us who have survived sustained harm understand that patterns of harm are actually the opposite of benign: they are malignant. And indeed, whiteness, which I define as the ideology of domination that intentionally and unintentionally expresses itself through the bodies of white people, operates much like a cancer, eroding and consuming. This erosion can be slow and, at times, nearly imperceptible. The lies, the betrayals of trust, the cowardice and shame, the lack of moral compass and the denial of harm-doing, enacts its first and perhaps most lasting damage to the psyche of the white person. A white person who is being consumed by whiteness may appear, to himself and others, helpless to do anything about this. A society being consumed by whiteness, by white danger, may appear to be helpless to do anything about it. And indeed our first response to this decompensation is often to feel concern and compassion, or exasperation and laughter. We should not be laughing, but we are. Laughter escapes the body when the nervous system is overwhelmed.

The confusion, denial, helplessness, and base absurdity of a white person, confronted with the impact of their own harmful behavior, is dangerous. This is not to say that it is equivocally more or less dangerous than an explicit show of domination. But it is a clear and present danger. It has long term consequences and an insidious nature, that is wound together in certitude with the explicit show of domination.

I have known many white people who cause harm and act surprised about it. It took me years to understand this behavior. The phenomenon wherein a white person denies their own reality through a pretense of confusion, in turn induces confusion for any witness. We may feel gaslit, at risk of questioning our own sight. What I have noticed, over years of observation, is that when white people repeatedly cause harm to people of color, and deny it, they are very effective at asserting an alternate reality to the one that white people themselves are directly experiencing, and they are especially effective at asserting their own victimization within that alternate reality.

We, who witness these assertions of an alternate reality, in which the white person (or, lately, white society) is the victim, may think it is autonomic because the behavior comes with such a high level of facility, so as to appear involuntary. And in a way, it is. Because they believe it, we believe it. They seem helpless and so they must be.

That is, indeed, the entire point. In reality, this assertion of victimization is a highly sophisticated and elegant defense mechanism, a product of a highly sophisticated and elegant psychology, that supports participation in white supremacy, a system that is most highly effective at replicating itself.

***

“The shaping of white identity, premised on exclusion, is a central thread in the national narrative, bound up with capitalist development in general and manifested, in one way or another, to one degree or another, in every political, social and cultural institution.” Linda Burnham, "No Plans to Abandon Our Freedom Dreams"

Increasingly I find myself turning towards the framework of double-mindedness, the twin conscious and unconscious behavior of people who engage in harmful or abusive behaviors, while simultaneously being unaware of causing harm to others, and even believing themselves to be incapable of causing harm. This type of consciousness is not specific to whiteness. In fact, it permeates most relationships where dominance and abuse is present. White identity is one such space, as it must be differentiated from other cultural and ethnic identities (including those which were subsumed into whiteness in order to manifest it), inasmuch as its foundational operating principle is the abuse of power. Application of the framework of double-mindedness* to the phenomenon of whiteness has unlocked a deeper level of understanding for me, and in my work with white people.

Double-mindedness in white people is, at once, a core function of, and a dangerous side effect of, living within the coevolving systems of capitalism and white supremacy - what Cedric Robinson rightly articulated as “racial capitalism,” understanding that racialization is endemic to capitalism, not distinct from it. The function of double-mindedness has roots as old as the system itself. How else would one remain functional inside a socio-economic system that confers benefits to white people through violence against, and at the extractive expense of, Black and indigenous people and people of color? A white person must become effective at dissociating. The heart, the brain, the bodymind itself, becomes adept at running offline, quieting the systems that would register ongoing harm, violence, and injustice as a disturbance.

Generations of white people in the United States have learned and practiced this type of dissociation. It comes with a high level of facility, just as the dissociations of Black and brown people in order to navigate the chronic threat of white supremacy on our bodies and psyches, comes with a high level of facility. The dissociation of double-mindedness in white people is supported by hundreds of years of policy, legislation, and political process that allow, even require, individual white people to relate to Black and indigenous people and people of color as a lesser class of human. The socialization of whiteness deems the non-white class unworthy of the same empathic response as fellow white people.

Ideology plays a key role as well. The entire system of racial capitalism is constructed on a narrative of white superiority, and most importantly, the inherent “goodness” of white people of European descent, an inheritance of the unique historical overlay of Christian hegemony and colonization, wherein the role of the European Christian missionary was to “subdue” Black and indigenous communities through conversion intent on saving their souls. Those who were not willing to be converted were tortured, raped, and murdered.

We cannot underestimate the impact of this legacy of violence on the psyche of white Americans. We cannot overestimate the conditioning toward violence within the cultural trauma of whiteness. Whiteness is not just a cultural trauma of erasure: the ways that European communities, at times by choice and at times by violent force, gave up their cultures of origin for the sake of assimilation into the system of white supremacy. Whiteness is also a cultural trauma of violence: enacting violence, witnessing violence, consenting to violence, and celebrating violence. Consider that we are only a generation or two out from a period in which lynchings were a Sunday affair and white children posed for photos beneath the tortured, mutilated, and deceased bodies of Black people who lived in their communities. (If we can be considered beyond this, which is arguable). Consider that even now, there are white people who reactively celebrate Black death at the hands of the police, as if protesting for the civil right to do so. Consider the split consciousness of the white person who at once subscribes to religious vows or values, who engages in spiritual practices, who meditates on the nature of compassion, and also experiences and re-experiences pleasure through violence.

Consider that we are all connected to this legacy and this conditioning.

White status is, and has always been, a contested space. Just as the space of “other” is contested. But as our most recent elections and attempted coup have laid bare, the core tenets of white status and the core beliefs of white supremacy have remained relatively stable for over centuries. It is only the individual and collective dissociative state in white people, arising from witnessing and participating in daily systemic violence that benefits the white community, that would have anyone believing otherwise. That state, at its essence, is double-mindedness. On the one hand, a white person is engaged in a system of violence and harm, and is capable of causing enormous harm to those who are targeted by and vulnerable within that system. For evidence of this, simply look to any recent news story reporting on white women calling the police on Black people who are engaged in everyday behaviors of life. The same white women at the heart of these stories believe themselves to be benign, incapable of causing harm, because of an internalized narrative of white goodness and white neutrality.

Individual and interpersonal racialized violence and racial harm often occurs within the dissociated state, and is enacted by the dissociated body. A demand for accountability in the aftermath of this behavior, or even something as simple as “feedback” on harmful behavior, is received as an assault. A white person, believing themself to be benign, either fights or collapses in response to learning about the behavior taking place within the dissociative state. These days we casually and frustratedly refer to “white tears” and “white fragility” as we throw up our hands in exasperation, disbelieving that a white person could truly not see that their behavior was problematic or violent. But in actuality, white tears and white fragility are just one visible manifestation of the sophisticated defense mechanism of double-mindedness.

Consider this: If a white man experiences himself as a confused, helpless victim of his own lack of consciousness and understanding, he is not then responsible for his own behavior. No alternative behavior, no solution, no apology, and no internal work is then required. He may continue causing harm and enacting social, emotional, psychological, or physical violence in perpetuity, always and forever claiming that he does not understand, and could never understand, why his behavior is harmful. But his confusion and helplessness is not disconnected from an explicit show of domination. The former offers a path of distancing from the latter, assuaging guilt, soothing the ego, reassuring the white person of his goodness. He is protected, and his double-mindedness is intact.

There is a different path, albeit it is a harder one. Whereas the double-minded and unintegrated self is causing interpersonal and collective harm, the integrated self may actually be capable of interrupting patterns, of offering true apology and accountability, of taking responsibility for body, words, and decisions in real time. Hard, yes, but it is not, after all, so tall an order. Black and brown people, indigenous people, and people of color learn from a very young age that part of our job is to control ourselves, lest we die. White people instead learn that they have little responsibility to control themselves. White people learn that the locus of their control responsibility lies externally, and they learn to control others, often through violence, microaggression, gaslighting, manipulation, and other forms of overt or subtle abuse.

I believe this lesson can be reversed and dismantled. I believe it is the necessary work of white people to engage in, right now, for the sake of our collective survival.

I also believe in harm reduction. Because the danger of the unintegrated white self and society, the inability to take responsibility for one's own actions and the impact of those actions on others, is not a one-sided danger. Those of us who witness and understand this phenomenon, can make the conditions more or less dangerous for ourselves and others based on how much room we give to the behavior, how long we allow our boundaries to be violated, how much benefit of the doubt we give, and with how much resignation we move through the world.

Can we accept the danger for what it is, without collapsing in response to that danger?

And what then? If we are not to collapse, what are we then compelled to do about white danger? Because the danger of double-mindedness is not limited to the interpersonal, institutional, cultural, or even national realms. The danger of this phenomenon is playing out on a global scale, where the combination of bullish resistance to reality and reticent confusion at the consequences of bad behavior has masked the highly racialized difference between the U.S. public health response, and that of Black and brown majority nations. We are not doing well, and I believe it is not an exaggeration to say that our problem is psychological.

We must consider the role of a cultural orientation to violence and subjugation, inside the criminal mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic response at the highest echelons of government and the most localized level of relationship. A narrative of white goodness, an unwillingness to respect the most basic social boundaries (social distance, wear a mask), and a warped relationship toward the humanity of others, plays no small role in the outrageously dangerous behavior of Americans, and may explain the sensibility that avoidable deaths are, in actuality, collateral we pledge towards economic prosperity. It is what sociologist Janine De Novais calls “worship” in the death cult of white supremacy.

What I know for certain: it is not up to white people to keep us safe, or to get us free. It never was. It never will be.

Some years ago, I attended a retreat on race, love, and liberation, with Reverend angel Kyodo williams, a Black zen teacher and author. During the event, Reverend angel helped us to discern the difference between justice and liberation, noting that most conceptions of justice in an American context presuppose a condition where the group who has caused harm is in a position to give us justice. Liberation, she felt, was something altogether different.

In a context of global collapse, climate catastrophe, fascistic rise, and racial reckoning, I feel and see and experience daily the limitation of “justice” to give us protection, to heal us, to free us. So long as we engage the alternate reality circumscribed by the double-mindedness of whiteness, where boundaries are not boundaries and harm is not harm, we cannot be safe and we cannot be free. That way lies destruction. There is nothing more for us, or for them.

We must turn, and it must be now. If it is the work of white people to integrate themselves, so that they might heal, then it is the work of Black and brown people to free ourselves. So that we might live.

*This is different from the double-consciousness of black people, as described by W.E.B. DuBois in his 1897 autoethnographic work, The Souls of Black Folk, to describe the internal conflict experienced by Black people when having to view themselves through the racist gaze of white society.

3/3/18 3/3/18

Sheep, Shepherd, Wolf

Sheep, Shepherd, Wolf.Trigger Warning: Includes Graphic descriptions of gun violence.March 3, 2018We don’t call it active shooter, she says, explaining to her brother how 2nd graders do it differently than 4th graders. We call it sheep, shepherd, wolf. And all the teachers are the shepherds. And the bad guy is the wolf. And the kids are the sheep.Just like that, so matter of fact, she shares with me how she learned today to run quietly into the prairie if the man with the gun is not following her. But if he is following her, she must run in a zig zag and scream very loud, as loud as she can.She is seven.I feel myself begin to cry and stop. I feel myself almost throw up and then stop. We are pulling into the parking lot. I just picked them up from school and we are stopping at the grocery store before driving to get the youngest, who is just five, from preschool. I brake, I place the car in park, I notice a faint trembling in my hand as I turn the key in the ignition, lean against the steering wheel, breathe. I could pull her from school, I think, but that doesn’t take care of the movie theatres and the shopping malls and the summer camps and the health clinics and and and...Instead I step out of the car, and as we walk into the store, I pull her close to me.Mysteriously, as it seems to arise in me from nowhere, I see the footage of a street, and a body’s shadow running. The footage is shaky because the camera is held by the body whose shadow is running, crouching, quietly running. This goes on for some time, I don’t remember how long. Then there is the pop pop of gunshots, I don’t remember how many but someone knows, and the camera tips forward and over, as the body falls to the ground. That was over ten years ago. I know someone, I almost tell her, I know someone who died from a gunshot wound. I loved someone who was killed with a gun. I almost say but I don’t say.Today was enough. Her own fear is enough. Mommy’s boundaries are porous. Later that evening, as a frightful confirmation that the tragedy of my psychic ability is fully intact, I will get notice that this weekend PBS is airing a documentary about the murder of my friend, Brad Will, a journalist who was shot in Oaxaca while covering an uprising. His camera was rolling when the sniper shot him in the chest.But at this moment, we are still walking into the grocery store.I ask, were you scared during the drill? She says, I was so scared I didn’t come back right away. I say to her, it sounds like you did very well. I’m proud of you. I’m sorry you have to do this.Let’s pick out some grapes, I say.I am grateful to the school and the staff for this heavy, heavy lift. I’m glad they taught my child how to run in a zig zag line, when to be quiet and when to scream. I can hold the truth that I do not want her to know this but I also very much want her to know this if knowing could make any difference at all in the split second decisions she will have cause to make when the wolf, rabid with hate and pain, comes through the door.But secretly to myself I accept the harder truths that are otherwise. Because zig zag lines do not help if the gunman has an semi-automatic assault rifle. Because in any case she might be the child who bars the door, riddled with bullets to save her friends. Because she might be found draped over someone else’s body, and that other body is the one that is shaking but alive. Because maybe she survives but she doesn’t really, because what happens to a child who watches their friends and teachers bleed to death?And as a parent, should I fantasize that she survives? Which of her classmates should die in her place?There is bile rising in me. Raging that it’s not acceptable. It’s not acceptable that our children are burdened with the responsibility of learning survival skills inside their schools, how to turn their schools into barricades, because our society will not do the only thing necessary to stop this from happening.We call it sheep, shepherd, wolf.I look at her again. If we did not live in America, I would say she is innocent of the metaphor, and she doesn’t know how the wolf has only its teeth, how the wolf can spew no slivers of metal that would shred her spleen and liver. I would say the shepherd and the sheep and the wolf is a comfort, like a rhyme, or like a song.I would say that, but it isn’t true. It isn’t true that she doesn’t know. She knows all too well that it is just a metaphor, and therefore, in part, a lie.Just like she already knows about the middle passage.Just like she already knows that most adults are not to be trusted.We don’t call it active shooter, she says. But she knows that is what it’s called.

12/14/17 12/14/17

Resilience is Our Birthrite

January 19th 2017

Beloveds~

Resilience is our birthrite. Resilience is our birthrite and our liberation is bound together. As a teacher of an intersectional politic, and as a believer in the possibility offered to us by our ancestors, I stand today and affirm our survival. I affirm our brilliance. I affirm our resistance. I affirm our resilience. And most of all, I affirm that we do know the path to liberation. Because resilience is our birthrite. We follow that path into darkness with our hands outstretched, believing. We follow it on the march, with our breath and our singing joined together. We follow it as we pull the lessons of the past forward into the future, letting our ancestors teach us, again, to organize. We follow it together because we have common cause, and our cause is the commons. Today I stand, not with hope, but with certainty. The reason I know that change will come is because I know that it has. I know it in my bones and so do you. Today, and every day, I affirm that I have choice.I choose liberation.

In resistance

~Autumn

6/14/16 6/14/16

A Queer Love

Beloveds,

We are in the darkness now, oh. And while we yearn to grow back toward the light, we must familiarize ourselves with this darkness. It is terrain we have walked before, but blindly. Let’s begin to see.In the wake of the massacre in Orlando of my queer and trans and black and brown siblings, I feel called to share some things with you all.I am queer. Some of you know this but probably most of you don’t. The fact is for many years I felt that I couldn’t claim a queer identity because I am a cis woman married to a man. The fact is I was afraid to because as a brown woman I’m already subjected to plenty of harm, and I didn’t want another reason to be targeted. It wasn’t until this year that I felt grounded enough to stand in my identity as a queer femme. It took so many people in my life who love me, seeing me, seeing my queerness, and helping me out of the shadow. It took me seeing what a queer love could do.This is the year I came out. This is the year in which 50 queers were murdered while celebrating our history of resistance - resistance to silencing, resistance to state sanctioned violence, resistance to erasure, resistance and rebuilding - our own families, our own lives, our own bodies. Our siblings who were gunned down dancing, they were dancing on the floor of memory, celebrating the very fact of our existence. The love I have to give is a queer love. My family is a queer family. My oldest child, at the tender age of 7, came out this year as non-binary. In response, and not even at his request, one of his sisters has started interchanging the pronouns he and she when she talks about him. This is what queer love can do. We can be seen, even when we aren’t asking to be seen, in a queer love. We all need queer love, even if we aren’t queer, and do you want to know why? Because everything that has been, is falling away. It’s failing, and it’s dying. It is that queer love, that love from the margins, that love that has survived in spite of all of the systems design to kill it and erase it - that is the love that we will build with. There is no other answer. That is not to say a straight love is bad. It’s rather to say a straight love needs to be queered. And if you want to stand here, hand in hand, in freedom and liberation with me, you better learn some queer love. Good people, if you think this moment isn’t about you, or your love, or your family, you are wrong. We are all on the front lines right now, whether we believe it or not. We ARE the front lines. Stand with me. Stand with us. Don’t fall asleep. And don’t be afraid. Turn in the darkness. We are together now.

~Autumn

***If you are going to be at the Allied Media Conference in Detroit this week, I would love to have your support and participation in the spaces and workshops I am holding.

Friday June 17th A Healing Circle for Orlando and Beyond, 2-3:30pm | MacGregor Room

Our community has sustained another horrific tragedy, and yet we are. Systems of oppression and colonization try to erase us, to murder us, to white wash our tragedies, and yet we are. The machine of war tries to use our queer, trans, black and brown bodies as tools and as weapons, and we resist, and so, we are. Come join a circle of grievers, to hold each other in love and rage. Join us in building an altar of Return to remember those in Orlando and beyond whose bodies have been taken by state sanctioned violence, but whose spirits burn within us. Come with your body and your heart: there will be space to sit in circle and speak the things that need to be spoken, time to sing our grief together, and time to feel and move grief through our bodies. All remembrance and spiritual practices welcome.Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines, 4-5:30pmStudent Center, Room 285"Revolutionary Mothering" places marginalized mothers of color at the center of a world in need of transformation. Mothers from marginalized backgrounds create a generous space for life in the face of oppression and activate a powerful vision of the future while navigating the tangible concerns of the present. Join us for a panel discussion of movement shifting committed to birthing new worlds.

Sunday June 19th Holding Space: Strategies for Anti-Oppressive Facilitation Part 1, 1-2:30pm | State Hall, Room 118

How can facilitators hold space in ways that are truly anti-oppressive? We will explore strategies for facilitation that center the needs of Black, Brown and Indigenous people, disabled people, LGBTQ folks, survivors and others. We will examine how various approaches and activities can build solidarity and safety in group settings. We will deepen our existing skills and leave with effective new tools for liberatory facilitation. This is part one of a two-part workshop.

Holding Space Part 2: Anti-Oppressive Conflict Intervention for Facilitators, 3-4:30pm | State Hall, Room 118

How can facilitators intervene in conflicts and oppressive behaviors? We will build on Part I to equip facilitators with mediation and intervention tools. Drawing on group wisdom, we will test and explore options for creating safer spaces through addressing microaggressions and interpersonal conflicts. Folks will leave with toolkits to support healthy and just group dynamics in social change settings. Participation in Part I is highly recommended.

4/7/16 4/7/16

The Gift of Grief

Hello Good People~

Can you feel it? Can you feel the spring seeping up, and running out the ghosts? Maybe there is snow falling where you are, but the pungent stink of earth is unmistakable. This winter will end. It is a strange time to be alive.

A year ago today, I was still wading through the initial months of grief over losing my child. Grief is strange: it makes your relationship to the one you loved so clear - there is a taut line stretched between you and them, and it vibrates with your suffering, and you don't want that to stop because it keeps you connected - but it makes your relationship to pretty much everything else, especially the present, very muddy. March and April and May, the months following the due date of my baby, were heavy with the future I wasn't living but felt I had been owed. On Mother's Day I had a distinct feeling of wanting to crawl into a hole and die. I could feel the space my baby was supposed to be inhabiting when I woke up that morning. I was so angry that I couldn't bear it.

It is not hard for me to call up these feelings. I'm not so far away from it that it's not available to me. But something began shifting in me, through the summer and into the fall, and even in the darkness of winter as my body began coming apart, or it seemed to me. I suffered a car accident that left me with a concussion and whiplash injury, a CT scan that turned up pneumonia, an X-ray that revealed an abnormality in my chest, which after 4 wretched days of waiting turned out not to be cancer. I felt a general fatigue from commuting to and from St. Paul, an exhaustion that wouldn't release its grip. I started to feel like I wouldn't ever feel good again. This whole last year was, in a way, a long, sad anniversary of losses. My body was manifesting the things my heart and mind couldn't bear. And in the midst of it, I was doing some of the most powerful and transformative community work I have ever done.

On March 7th, two days after I completed my tenure as Interim Executive Director of RECLAIM!, I boarded a flight to Mexico. This trip felt like walking through a gate into my new life. I reconnected with my amazing partner, Genjo, after a really challenging year during which I was away more often than around. I reconnected with myself, my sense of humor, my sense of play, my sense of imagination and my belief in my ability to manifest everything I want. Every damn thing.

That manifesting? It is happening now. For so much of the last two years I was wishing for ease. “When,” I would cry, “when will it stop being SO HARD??” I'm finally experiencing it now but it's not because things aren't hard. That was my own confusion. It turns out that ease is available to me a lot of the time. Like a gift being outstretched if only I could turn and gaze.

The gift of grief is seeing the lie of time. There is no future I have to wait for to be happy. There is no past hounding me, disallowing my joy. There is only the present moment, and that is as true for my joy as it is for my trauma. From the perspective of my body, my baby is still just dying and my new job is still just starting. From the perspective of my body I am still boarding that flight to Mexico and I am still sitting on the floor of my old office in Downtown St. Cloud, MN, wondering how the hell I am going to get back up. And the feeling I got when I learned about being awarded a writing residency in Vermont? It is still occurring, now. I can call it up. And I can set it down. I can be patient with myself and trust myself.

Two nights ago I had the distinct pleasure of hearing Rebecca Solnit read her own work and speak about her process. I'm currently reading A Paradise Built in Hell, her brilliant retelling of five disasters on the North American continent that prove our altruistic, cooperative and generative nature in the face of incredible hardship. I asked her what she thought of this innate and surprising human capacity, in the face of climate crisis, another poignant area of her work. She answered by paraphrasing Virginia Woolf: "the future is dark, and that is the best thing it can be." She reminded me, and everyone in the room that night, to take great comfort in the mystery. It is those hard and heavy and taxing transitions – grief, loss, destruction, disaster – that teach us who we are. The gift of grief is standing on the other side knowing you would have never asked for that experience, but in the wake of it you would never give it up. Not for anything.

I look back on the last two years and see the gift of my grief. I look forward and see the darkness: imminent, true, waiting for me.

Be well~Autumn

The Anti-Oppression Resource & Training Alliance

I am beyond pleased to share that I have made my employment transition and I am now working at AORTA, the Anti-Oppression Resource & Training Alliance. Click here to see my bio on the website and an extremely glamorous headshot.

AORTA is a worker-owned cooperative devoted to strengthening movements for social justice and a solidarity economy. We work as consultants and facilitators to expand the capacity of cooperative, collective, and community based projects through education, training, and planning. We base our work on an intersectional approach to liberation because we believe that true change requires uprooting all systems of oppression.

I join as AORTA’s newest member, and as a candidate owner. You can learn more about AORTA here, and I encourage you to reach out to me directly at autumn@aorta.coop if you are interested in how AORTA could assist your work, whether that is through facilitation and training, movement building and education, or consulting on organizational transformation.

To hear about our public events, receive our free resources for movement building and liberation, and learn more about how we do the work we do, subscribe to AORTA’s low-volume email list here.

Come out for The Paper Quilt: A Revolutionary Mothering Zine Workshop

As some of you already know, an essay I wrote in 2011 shortly after moving to Minnesota was recently published in the anthology Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines (PM Press 2016). We have a beautiful event coming up this month in Minneapolis. I hope to see you there!

Saturday April 23rd, 3-5pm

Hosted by Ancestry Books at Juxtaposition Arts

1108 West Broadway Avenue

North Minneapolis, MN 55411

Before there was the book Revolutionary Mothering there were the zines Revolutionary Motherhood and The Future Generation and Outlaw Midwives. The Paper Quilt workshop is an interactive workshop in which a group of people will quilt together a motherful publication in 2 hours or less! This workshop is a great way to make your insights shareable and is part of our mission to expand the idea of what stories about mothering circulate in our society.

This workshop will be informal and interactive and is open to the entire family. I will be co-facilitating this workshop with Revolutionary Mothering editors Alexis Pauline Gumbs and Mai'a Williams!

Hello Good People~

I look back on the last two years and see the gift of my grief. I look forward and see the darkness: imminent, true, waiting for me.

Be well~Autumn

The Anti-Oppression Resource & Training Alliance

To hear about our public events, receive our free resources for movement building and liberation, and learn more about how we do the work we do, subscribe to AORTA’s low-volume email list here.

Come out for The Paper Quilt: A Revolutionary Mothering Zine Workshop

Saturday April 23rd, 3-5pm

Hosted by Ancestry Books at Juxtaposition Arts

1108 West Broadway Avenue

North Minneapolis, MN 55411

This workshop will be informal and interactive and is open to the entire family. I will be co-facilitating this workshop with Revolutionary Mothering editors Alexis Pauline Gumbs and Mai'a Williams!

11/25/15 11/25/15

On Being Targeted

Hello good people~

Yesterday I spent the beginning of my Therapy session huddled on the floor under a pile of blankets. I see a somatic therapist so a big part of what we do is following the shape that the body needs to take: my body needed to hide.

I have been feeling a profound lack of safety, both related to where I live, but also related to where all black and brown people live in the us. There is no safe place.

I also needed to cry and grieve for Jamar Clark. I needed to give him, a stranger and a brother, that space. My therapist asked me what my wish was for Jamar.

I said, I wish for him that he has a sense of completion.

I said, I wish for him that he doesn't experience what happened as something stolen from him, but that he experiences it as his complete life.

I said, I wish that we who survive, that we are the ones who carry the burden of knowing otherwise, not him.

This may all end. No, it will. Unquestionably. The way we humans have organized ourselves throughout time just keeps evolving. That's the good part. But this latest evolution is dangerous. We are tipping between all out fascism and the possibility of liberation. As Ta-Nehisi Coates said, the arc of history bends towards chaos. We cannot know what the future holds and we cannot trust that in the end justice will be served. We know too much.

We have to fight. Every. Day. If you are standing on the sidelines I am asking you, for myself and for my children. Join me. It is too exhausting to be a target and to know that my children are too. That the best I can do is protect them while they are in my care and teach them to protect themselves.

And yes, I am not safe. Neither are my children. Neither are yours. White supremacy and fascism and capitalism will be indiscriminate in the end. In the end, the survivors of all this warring, unmoored in their tiny boat, adrift on a ravaged sea, will have watched so many children drowning that their souls will go into hiding. The hard truth is that you won't get to be human any more. Not if you stand on the sidelines.

It is our duty to fight.
It is our duty to win.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.

Be well-Autumn

Hello good people~

I have been feeling a profound lack of safety, both related to where I live, but also related to where all black and brown people live in the us. There is no safe place.

I also needed to cry and grieve for Jamar Clark. I needed to give him, a stranger and a brother, that space. My therapist asked me what my wish was for Jamar.

I said, I wish for him that he has a sense of completion.

I said, I wish for him that he doesn't experience what happened as something stolen from him, but that he experiences it as his complete life.

I said, I wish that we who survive, that we are the ones who carry the burden of knowing otherwise, not him.

It is our duty to fight.
It is our duty to win.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.

Be well-Autumn

11/1/15 11/1/15

November 2015 News: Book Me in 2016!!

Hello good people!

In a time of such deep and beautiful transition, I am celebrating because I have really wonderful news to share. But first, an update...

As many of you know, I have been serving as the Interim Executive Director of RECLAIM, an amazing nonprofit in the Twin Cities that increases access to mental health support for queer and trans youth so that they may reclaim their lives from oppression in all its forms. We are now looking for a permanent Executive Director, so please consider sharing this announcement with people you know who may be interested in this role...

It's been an incredible year, and I will be sad to say goodbye to RECLAIM. But I am also thrilled about my next step...(drum roll please)...

In 2016 I will be joining AORTA, the Anti-Oppression Resource and Training Alliance, a worker-owned cooperative devoted to strengthening movements for social justice and a solidarity economy. We work nationally as consultants and facilitators to expand the capacity of cooperative, collective, and community based projects through education, training, and planning. We base our work on an intersectional approach to liberation because we believe that true change requires uprooting all systems of oppression. Basically I've been fangirling AORTA for several years, so I'm deeply honored to be joining the team.

This means that for the first time since 2012 I am available regionally and nationally for consulting work, and most of that work will flow through AORTA. This includes organizational development, strategic planning, retreat facilitation, and my Foundations of Social Change Training Series, a set of one-day to two-day trainings on structural oppression and transformative social change practices, including:

Identity, Difference, and Power Dynamics
Race, Whiteness, and Transformation
Consensus Decision-Making
Facilitation
The Action Star for Community Organizing
and many more...

I will continue working independently to build a new body of work on Nonprofit Trauma and Organizational Healing. I define Nonprofit Trauma as the specific experience of severe mental and emotional stress arising from systemic interrelational and/or structural abuse that takes place within the context of a workplace grounded in social service or social change values. I am experimenting with and building resources for organizational practices that seek to heal past or current harms, with the ultimate goal of strengthening the organizations that advance social justice work. To that end, in 2016 I am open to 1-3 organizations who want to hire me as an "embedded" consultant, assessing the organizational trauma/crisis*, and facilitating a process that includes circle mediation, storytelling, policy and practices assessment, and systems change recommendations.

If you are interested in booking me in 2016, please use the Contact form on my website.

There is great abundance in my life right now, and I am grateful that I am still here and able to share it. As many of you know, I just came through an extraordinarily difficult year, during which I lost a baby in pregnancy. I just passed the one year anniversary of this loss, and I feel so grateful for the life I have now, and the ways the child I lost has become my teacher. I have a much deeper commitment to practicing self-care and self-love, to setting and holding healthy boundaries, and to letting go of the things that, for whatever reason, must be released.

Another beautiful thing that happened in the last year was the publishing of Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements. The reception has been OUTSTANDING (we are currently #1 on Powell's best-selling anthologies list, WHAT??), and humbling. Coming out as a emerging science fiction writer has been fun and funny and exciting, akin to what I imagine skydiving feels like. For those of you who have read my story, first of all, thank you for taking the time. Second of all, please note that it is the first chapter in a novel-in-progress. I hope to create retreat time within the next year to complete a first draft of the novel. In the meantime, please check out "A Future Anthropology," the essay I wrote about visionary fiction and social justice work for the emergent issue of The James Franco Review, released in October.

You are great, and awesome, and I appreciate you for reading this missive from the woods of Minnesota.

Be well~Autumn

*How do you know if you are experiencing or have experienced an organizational trauma/crisis? Look for these tell-tale signs:

a toxic internal work culture, characterized by secrecy, trash talking, intimidation, and silencing
a disconnect between externally stated values and internal practices (ex. employees or impacted communities are invited to give feedback on potential decisions and their feedback is ignored)
multiple people with marginalized identities leave the organization within a short span of time, or
a general inability to retain people with marginalized identities on staff or board
a decision or series of decisions are made by senior leadership that result in reductions or layoffs
institutional and/or community partners or funders are reducing or pulling support
...trust your gut!

Hello good people!

Identity, Difference, and Power Dynamics
Race, Whiteness, and Transformation
Consensus Decision-Making
Facilitation
The Action Star for Community Organizing
and many more...

If you are interested in booking me in 2016, please use the Contact form on my website.

a toxic internal work culture, characterized by secrecy, trash talking, intimidation, and silencing
a disconnect between externally stated values and internal practices (ex. employees or impacted communities are invited to give feedback on potential decisions and their feedback is ignored)
multiple people with marginalized identities leave the organization within a short span of time, or
a general inability to retain people with marginalized identities on staff or board
a decision or series of decisions are made by senior leadership that result in reductions or layoffs
institutional and/or community partners or funders are reducing or pulling support
...trust your gut!

3/20/15 3/20/15

March 2015 News: Octavia's Brood

Hello Good People~

It's been so long since I have written to you that I hardly know where to begin. I suppose I must begin where I am, which is a place of huge gratitude.

The last year of my life has been the most painful and transformative. I suffered a series of devastating and irrevocable losses (more on that in future letters) that pressed me to the edges of myself. Something (or a set of somethings) had impacted me, creating a crater, a lake, a space of reflection and silence. It was this great depth, and the clarity of what was left standing at the edges, that gave me the freedom to reimagine who I am, who I can be, and what my work in this world (at least this time around) is for.

It was profound to experience in my own life what I have long understood to be true - that change and transformation grows at the edges, it comes from the edges, and that it is only when our reductionist and essentialized stories of ourselves or what is are erased that we can envision a different path. From our darkest places comes our capacity to make magic happen. From our darkest places comes our liberation and our yearning, our willingness to transform.

This theme is embedded throughout an incredible project that is finally (finally!) being birthed into being after years of labor. Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements is an anthology of visionary science fiction and
speculative fiction written by organizers and activists. I am excited and proud (and definitely a little nervous) to share that I have a story being published in this anthology called "Small and Bright," an excerpt from an unpublished novel I have been working on since 2010. This anthology, coming out in April from AK Press, is curated by co-editors adrienne maree brown and Walidah Imarisha, and includes short stories, works in progress, art, and essays from some of the most visionary organizers and change makers of our time.

In a recent article, Walidah Imarisha wrote about the powerful community organizing and movement work that inspired Octavia's Brood, named in honor of Black feminist sci-fi writer and MacArthur “Genius” award winner Octavia Butler: "We started the anthology with the belief that all organizing is science fiction. When we talk about a world without prisons; a world without police violence; a world where everyone has food, clothing, shelter, quality education; a world free of white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, heterosexism; we are talking about a world that doesn’t currently exist. But collectively dreaming up one that does means we can begin building it into existence." Her gorgeous piece about the anthology, which includes a snapshot of my story, can be found here - Rewriting the Future: Using Science Fiction to Re-Envision Justice.

Is this work necessary? I believe so. For me, speculative and science and visionary fiction has always been the gateway between the world we live in and the world that can be.

And if numbers mean anything, Octavia's Brood have already broken AK Press's record for number of pre-orders. :) You can pre-order your copy HERE.

In other news, I made a wonderful employment transition at the beginning of 2015, and I am now serving as the Interim Executive Director of RECLAIM!, a nonprofit that provides mental health and integrative care to queer and trans youth in Minnesota, with the vision that our communities can be free of oppression in all its forms. I am also serving on the Project Leadership Team for the Cultural Agility Collaboration, a statewide project hosted by Minnesota Campus Compact that is working to build authentic cross-racial collaborations and shared power within Minnesota's institutions of higher education.

In this time of newness and abundance, I am intent on publishing Iambrown on a more regular basis, so stay tuned for future news.

Happy freakin' equinox and supermoon and solar eclipse, people.

Be well~Autumn

Hello Good People~

It's been so long since I have written to you that I hardly know where to begin. I suppose I must begin where I am, which is a place of huge gratitude.

Is this work necessary? I believe so. For me, speculative and science and visionary fiction has always been the gateway between the world we live in and the world that can be.

And if numbers mean anything, Octavia's Brood have already broken AK Press's record for number of pre-orders. :) You can pre-order your copy HERE.

In this time of newness and abundance, I am intent on publishing Iambrown on a more regular basis, so stay tuned for future news.

Happy freakin' equinox and supermoon and solar eclipse, people.

Be well~Autumn

10/5/14 10/5/14

October 2014 News: Whole Access

Hello Good People~

It is wonderful to be writing to you, and on such an auspicious occasion. I am excited to announce that I have officially learned to use Twitter!!

OK, so that's not really the reason I am writing, but it feels like a really big deal. The REAL reason I am writing is this: through my work with the Central MN Sustainability Project, I am launching an exciting new program that I want to share with you. I want you to show your love for Whole Access!!

www.igg.me/at/wholeaccess

Whole Access is an ambitious new project intended to support all Central MN farmer's markets in becoming EBT - accessible. This means that anyone in our region who uses SNAP Benefits (popularly known as Food Stamps) will be able to use their benefits to purchase health, fresh food at the market nearest to them.

This work is innovative for a couple of reasons:1) it means that we are diversifying who gets to sit at the "local foods table" which has historically been a very elite space; and 2) it means we are creating additional income streams for struggling small, sustainable farmers. This is a model that is replicable across the country.

In order to get this work off the ground, we at the Central MN Sustainability Project need help and support from like-minded activists and advocates around the country, and so we launched our first ever crowd-funding campaign through Indiegogo. We have already raised over $1000, and our goal is $5000! We have some gorgeous hand-made perks for donors at every level, and if you make a gift, we will send you an awesome perk with a handwritten and lip-kissed thank you note no matter how far away you are.

Please consider watching our inspiring film (featuring yours truly, as well as a heavy-hitter of the food justice movement, LaDonna Redmond!) and making a gift of any size. We have 19 days left!

Thanks for all of your love, support, and encouragement over the years. Without each of you, I would not be where I am today, doing the work I love. Sending warmth and gratitude to all of you...

Be well~Autumn

Hello Good People~

It is wonderful to be writing to you, and on such an auspicious occasion. I am excited to announce that I have officially learned to use Twitter!!

www.igg.me/at/wholeaccess

Please consider watching our inspiring film (featuring yours truly, as well as a heavy-hitter of the food justice movement, LaDonna Redmond!) and making a gift of any size. We have 19 days left!

Thanks for all of your love, support, and encouragement over the years. Without each of you, I would not be where I am today, doing the work I love. Sending warmth and gratitude to all of you...

Be well~Autumn

7/27/13 7/27/13

July 2013 - Stay Solid! and Octavia's Brood

Hello Good People~

The summer has been busy! I am half-way through my first growing season with the Central MN Sustainability Project. We've planted a sustainable fruit orchard, placed a permanent water system for our flagship multicultural community garden, and launched our Market Gardens program in partnership with the Land Stewardship Project. Wow! We rock!

Between my work with CMSP, my own garden, and my amazing family, I haven't been in as regular contact as I would like (do you miss me? I miss you!), but I had to send out a brief newsletter because my writing is being published!! I have a non-fiction piece on Race published in the brand-new anthology Stay Solid: A Radical Handbook for Youth (AK Press) and an imaginative fiction piece in the forthcoming Octavia's Brood! I am honored to have my writing published alongside organizers and activists that I consider my mentors, several of whom are among my most beloved friends.

Please read on below to learn more about both projects, how you can support this work and/or get ahold of a copy.

Be well~Autumn

***

Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements

Octavia's Brood is a self-published anthology of science and imaginative fiction writing from social justice organizers and activists. Edited by self-proclaimed nerds and reknowned artists Adrienne Maree Brown and Walida Imarisha, the intention of this work is to bridge the visionary worlds of speculative/science fiction with radical community organizing. Click on the link below to learn how you can support this project, both through our publication and a 10 city tour.

In case you are wondering whether or not this is awesome, both Levar Burton (of Star Trek: Enterprise fame) and Edward James Olmos (star of Battlestar Galactica) have expressed their excitement and support of the project on Twitter.

On twitter, y'all!!!

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/octavia-s-brood-science-fiction-stories-from-social-justice-movements?c=home

And if you would like to get a sneak peak of my story, check out this short video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol0ahz2ApdM

***
Stay Solid: A Radical Handbook for Youth

Stay Solid is a handbook for young people who are coming of age during this critical period of social transformation and upheaval. Covering everything from Family, Education, Community and Money to Race, Class, Ecocide, and Gender, the intention of this anthology is to help youth with leftist and anti-capitalist politics navigate the world. Get your copy or one for a young person you care about!

AK Press: http://www.akpress.org/staysolid.html
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Stay-Solid-Radical-Handbook-Youth/dp/184935099X
Powell's: http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-9781849350990-0

Hello Good People~

Please read on below to learn more about both projects, how you can support this work and/or get ahold of a copy.

Be well~Autumn

***

Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements

4/28/13 4/28/13

April 2013: Home is Here

Hello good people!

And welcome spring! Maybe you noticed: it's been awhile since I've sent a newsletter. For those of you who follow my writing, I apologize for the long delay. The last seven months I have been in a sort of hibernation, learning the ropes and loving the challenge of my still-quite-new job leading a young non-profit; stoking the fire in the wood burning furnace that heated my new home in the woods all winter long; and growing a new child (Mairead Irene was born on January 19th, at home in a tub, assisted by my sister, my midwife, my husband, and my mother). I was inwardly focused on growth and expansion, and I gave myself the space to fall inward, without commentary.

And as the winter wore on, I felt that my emotional well being was quite literally tested by the weather. Several snows came during the month of April; and yes, that is strange even for Minnesota. I began to have an actual, quite irrational fear that spring would never come.

And then it arrived. Yesterday I walked barefoot between long dead leaves, new grass, and sponges of melting snow, learning the outdoor landscape of my new home, a place I have never been in the spring. We are discovering that our house is surrounded by a carpet of tulips and crocuses that are just beginning to peek through the dirt. We planted our first trees: White spruce, scotch pine, and chokeberry. Mairead had her first taste of full sun, and loved it. Siobhan and Finn ran around naked, covering themselves in mud, and working hard with their father and grandfather to hang a bat box in the tree near our pond to attract mosquito eaters. We are preparing our garden, eager to get our seedlings into the ground: they grow taller every day and begin to smell like tomatoes and peppers.

Today I have that absolute sense of rebirth that I can only credit to having spent a winter so close to the land, and at the mercy of the physical climate. Surrounded by the silence of snow and dormant life, now the sounds of life return to our woods, and I truly feel them to be ours.

So I write to you now from a place of joyful understanding. I can feel myself in the balance, and always this is my experience after giving birth (I can really say "always" now, since it has been true three times). After giving birth, I become keenly aware of my own death and the future deaths of everyone I love, but I am less and less cowed by it. Death is just what is, in the same way that life is just what is. Life is painful and immeasurably sad, and then it is pleasure, release, the taste of boundlessness. Life is fear and not knowing, and then it is sudden immediate knowing. Life is hard. And then it's not.

What I am feeling now can only be expressed as gratitude, though there is something deeper too. Something this army brat has only ever felt hints of before, but is coming closer each day to knowing: an actual place called home. Home for me has always been migrating. Home is where my family is, or home is where I've lived the longest. But for home to be an actual place, a piece of land with it's own memory - that is a kind of magic I have never experienced. So here it is. My home, all around me. Home is here.

In this edition of Iambrown:

Seeds of Change: Share the Good (Everywhere)
Prelude: A slow foods dinner and silent auction to benefit the Central MN Sustainability Project (St. Cloud, MN)
Register now for the Allied Media Conference (Detroit, MI)
Radical Responsibility and Awakened Leadership (St. Paul, MN)

If you have trouble viewing this information in email format, visit my website www.iambrown.org.

*****

Seeds of Change: Share the Good

The Central MN Sustainability Project (CMSP) is competing for the chance to win a $25,000 grant, or one of 15 $10,000 grants from Seeds of Change (the organic seed distribution company). You can help us win by voting for us via FaceBook each day from now until May 17th!

CMSP develops community gardens and market gardens that create access to land for communities that would otherwise not have access. Through this work, we build community across culture and class barriers, and help to grow a local food economy that lifts up the wisdom and expertise of all members of our community. A grant from Seeds of Change would support the transformative education we are doing on sustainable gardening practices and food sovereignty in our flagship community garden at Maine Prairie, where we partner with African immigrants and refugees.

Visit our page and vote today... And then come back and vote each day until May 17th. It takes one click, and it could make a world of difference in our community. If you have trouble opening the link, go to FaceBook and search "Seeds of Change Share the Good" and input the zip code 56302.

Thanks for your support!

*****

Prelude: A slow foods dinner and silent auction to benefit the Central MN Sustainability Project

Thursday, May 2
6:30-9:00pm
Nick's Third Floor at DB Searles
Tickets are $75 each. Limited seating available, so order now.

Join us on Thursday, May 2 at Nick's Third Floor for a slow foods dinner and silent auction. Featuring Loose in the Tooth, St. Cloud's premier bluegrass duo, our benefit event is sure to awaken your spirit to the sounds, sights and tastes of spring.

All proceeds will be used to support community garden education and infrastructure, including a new watering system for Maine Prairie Garden. A portion of your ticket is tax deductible. Additionally, the Otto Bremer Foundation will match any money we raise dollar-for-dollar up to $10,000! Let's make it a night to remember!

If you cannot make it Thursday but you would like to support our gardens, visit the Give page of our website.

*****

Register NOW for the 15th Annual Allied Media Conference

This year's Allied Media Conference will take place June 20-23 in Detroit, MI. The Allied Media Conference is one of the most inspiring and transformative gatherings I have the privilege to attend every year, particularly because it brings together a true diversity of communities who are impacted by injustice, and who are using media in innovative ways to organize and transform their communities. I will be there presenting on parenting and science fiction, and attending the Healing Justice Network Gathering and Practice Space.

Check out amc.alliedmedia.org to learn more about the communities and networks that come together to generate new models for transformative community organizing every year. And register here if you plan to attend.

*****

Radical Responsibility and Awakened Leadership

Community Practices for Enlightened Society

October 17-19 2013

Clouds in Water Zen Center

St. Paul, MN

with guest teacher Fleet Maull

This workshop has been approved both the Minnesota Board of Psychology the State of Minnesota Board of Social Work for 16 CEU’s each.

In this intensive, experiential workshop, participants will be introduced to an integrated set of transformative communication, leadership and community building skills and practices while cultivating greater personal resilience, empathy, compassion and emotional & social intelligence. The training will include mindfulness-awareness meditation instruction and practice, experiential exercises, coaching and small group discussions.

This weekend is ideally suited for those working in the pubic sphere: government, business and non-profit leaders, teachers, social service professionals, therapists, ministers and any other organizational change agents. Participants will train in a variety of mindfulness and awareness meditation practices: presencing, emotional literacy, emotional regulation, state shifting, self-resourcing, deep listening, the basics of motivational interviewing, giving and receiving feedback – ultimately learning better ways to engage effectively with the various challenges we face in our daily lives

$200 - register by June 3 for only $160
*$50 non-refundable deposit

Learn more Here.

Seeds of Change: Share the Good (Everywhere)
Prelude: A slow foods dinner and silent auction to benefit the Central MN Sustainability Project (St. Cloud, MN)
Register now for the Allied Media Conference (Detroit, MI)
Radical Responsibility and Awakened Leadership (St. Paul, MN)

If you have trouble viewing this information in email format, visit my website www.iambrown.org.

*****

Seeds of Change: Share the Good

Thanks for your support!

*****

Prelude: A slow foods dinner and silent auction to benefit the Central MN Sustainability Project

Thursday, May 2
6:30-9:00pm
Nick's Third Floor at DB Searles
Tickets are $75 each. Limited seating available, so order now.

*****

Register NOW for the 15th Annual Allied Media Conference

*****

Radical Responsibility and Awakened Leadership

Community Practices for Enlightened Society

October 17-19 2013

Clouds in Water Zen Center

St. Paul, MN

Learn more Here.

9/2/12 9/2/12

September 2012 News - Labor is Meaningful Work

Hello Good People!

On this Labor Day Weekend, when we celebrate our successes and reflect upon the continued struggle for worker's rights, I am delighted to share news of new and meaningful work in my own life. I recently accepted a new position as Executive Director of the Central Minnesota Sustainability Project (www.sustainmn.org).

The Central Minnesota Sustainability Project (CMSP) connects people with land and provides the supplies and knowledge needed to grow healthful, chemical-free foods by co-creating diverse and inclusive community gardens. We put fresh vegetables and fruits into the hands of families who otherwise would not have access to healthy foods.We also provide economic opportunity to immigrants by connecting them with land and local establishments that purchase sustainable produce grown right in Central Minnesota.

As many of you know, the last two years has seen my family transition across the country from New York City to rural Minnesota, and finding my place in this new and sometimes alien community has been a journey. I feel a deep sense of satisfaction in knowing that all of the skills and knowledge I have gathered over the last five years of consulting with social justice non-profits, collectives, and cooperatives, will be put into critical use right here where I live - Central Minnesota!

You can expect more narrative in future newsletters, but for this month I wanted to keep my own message short and sweet. Read ahead for news of breathtaking food and social justice work happening around the country, and half way across the world in Israel/Palestine!

In this Edition of Iambrown:

Autumn in Audio: A Reportback on the Healing Justice Practice Space at the 2012 Allied Media Conference (Everywhere)
Interpreting for Social Justice (Minneapolis, MN)
Training in Healing and Transformation: A Multicultural Wellness Education Program of Holistic Practices (Milwaukee, WI and Detroit, MI)
Catholic Worker Farm Gathering (Dubuque, IA)
Heaven's Field Organic Farm (West Bank, Israel/Palestine)

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Autumn in Audio: A Reportback on the Healing Justice Practice Space at the 2012 Allied Media Conference

Roots, Runners, and Rhizomes: Health and Healing from the Underground, is a community radio show out of New York's Hudson Valley hosted by Sarah Faulkner and Lauren Giambrone.

On August 20th, Lauren took the interviewee seat, along with Autumn Brown, to give a report back from this year's Allied Media Conference Healing Justice Practice Space!

http://www.wgxc.org/archives/4922

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Interpreting for Social Justice

2½-Day Workshop, October 5 - 7, 2012
At Waite House, Activists and Organizers Resource Room
2323 13th Ave S, Minneapolis MN 55404

Connection, inclusion and solidarity versus isolation, exclusion and marginalization are all embedded in our ways of communicating. Working effectively across languages in our communities is an anti-oppression process, bridging cultures and languages as equals. In building the skills of interpreters in our own communities, we own our own means of
communication. How we communicate should be as important as what we communicate.

A WORKSHOP TO:
● Train interpreters so that they can empower immigrant communities by providing language accessibility
● Encourage local leadership through social justice interpreting
● Create multilingual spaces where language is used democratically as a tool for movement building from below

WHO:
Bilingual activists and workers who negotiate languages in their daily lives in community and political spaces interested in learning more about interpreting and translating as a
practice of multilingual social justice work.

LANGUAGES:
Two or more participants using a language required for that language's inclusion.

WORKSHOP INCLUDES:
Interpreter role and ethics -- Use of equipment -- Theoretical and political framework -- Impact of language barriers in social justice movement building -- How to create a
multilingual space -- Hands-on interpreting by participants

Roberto Tijerina is a queer Latino of immigrant parents whose work focuses on language justice. He coordinated the Multilingual Capacity Building Program at Highlander Research
and Education Center and coordinated language access for the 2010 US Social Forum in Detroit. He is fluent in English, Spanish and ASL. Waite House Activist and Organizers
Resource Room Project , a space for community building through the exchange of education and community knowledge The Popular Education Fund at Headwaters for Justice, a fund to
improve the educational work in social movements against oppression and violence and for democracy, sustainability, justice, and peace.

Participants must attend all sessions. This 2½-day workshop begins Friday, Oct 7, 3 pm-8 pm, and continues Saturday, Oct 8, 9 am-5 pm (Lunch included), and Sunday, Oct 9, 9 am-
5 pm (Lunch included).

Sliding Fee Scale for individuals: for organizations:
Income: Fee Budget:: Fee:
Under 15,000 $50 under $100,000/yr $150
15,000 to 35,000 $100 Over $100,000/yr $200
35,000 to $45,000 $150
Over $45,000 $200

Fees must be paid by September 28, 2012 or spaces at the workshop will be given to others on the waiting list.Maximum number in the workshop will be 22.

To Register: The week of Sept 4 or after go online to http://www.puc-mn.org/ and follow links.

Fees for this workshop are kept low by support from the Popular Education Fund at Headwaters Foundation for Justice

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Training in Healing and Transformation: A Multicultural Wellness Education Program of Holistic Practices

Training in Healing and Transformation is an intensive, hands-on program of holistic wellness practices for individuals and groups who serve and work with marginalized and oppressed communities/peoples. In four 20-hour sessions participants learn techniques of self-empowerment to alleviate the negative effects of stress, pain, trauma and woundedness. The training incorporates theory and practice in multi-cultural and popular education methodologies.

The program is offered over nine months in four sessions each of which is held from 3 pm to 7 pm on Friday, from 9 am to 6 pm on Saturday, and from 9 am to 1 pm on Sunday.

The weekends are:

I. October 19-21, 2012

II. January 11-13, 2013

III. March 15-17, 2013

IV. May 31-June 2, 2013

The first two sessions will be held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and the second two will be in Detroit, Michigan.

Find the brochure attached to this newsletter, and complete the enclosed Application Form and mail by September 15, 2012.

Presented by: Corktown Restorative Justice Center, Detroit Area Restorative Justice Network, Cap Corps Midwest, Core el Centro. In Collaboration withCAPACITAR, Inc.

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Catholic Worker Farm Gathering

February 15-18th, 2013 – Dubuque, Iowa

New Hope Catholic Worker Farm is hosting the second ever Catholic Worker Farm gathering (rural and urban). The gathering will begin on Friday evening the 15th and will go until the late afternoon of Monday, the 18th. The physical gathering space will be hosted by St. Joseph’s Key West (no, not Florida!), a Catholic Church on the outskirts of Dubuque, Iowa. The weekend will include roundtable discussions centered around growing food, hospitality on the land, various ways of doing resistance, spirituality, family life, and much more. There will also be crafting, healthy food, prayer, music, talent show, etc.

If you are interested in coming, please call 563.556.0987 to give us a sense of how many people to prepare for. If you’re interested in more details, please call the above number.

New Hope CW Farm

6697 Mitchell Mill Rd.

La Motte, IOWA 52054

563.556.0987
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Heaven's Field Organic Farm

Israelis and Palestinians create a cooperative organic farm in the West Bank, nurturing the land and neighborly relations.

Heavens Field- a farm of cooperation in a sea of conflict.

"The land doesn't belong to us, we belong to the land."

Israel/Palestine often sparks images of violence and conflict but there are also Palestinians and Jews dreaming and realizing a different future. Whatever political agreements may be reached- we know that our future on this land is together and its upon us to start working within our communities for a better future. Where we make space for each other- Heavens Field is exactly a space like that- a farm where we recognize and embody that this land is ultimately neither of ours; our design and farming on the land reflects our understanding of each other as long-term neighbors: perma-culture.

We hope that by our working the land together and hosting inter-cultural work and dialogue sessions we will nurture a future of greater understanding- reducing the fear and violence between our peoples. The money we hope to raise here is literally the seed money to take our planning and investment the next step!

What we envision:

Co-run by local Jews and Palestinians, we have spent the past winter working out details, agreements and becoming better friends. We have just harvested the wheat crop on our land, and secured 6 dunam on long term rental for the project. Now it is just the seed money that we need to begin renting this land and dedicating it to our project.

Heavens Field will turn outward - selling our veggies in our local markets - branded for co-existence, supporting local families in need and welcoming volunteers and tourists to this especially holy piece of land.
The land is in a beautiful spring-fed valley between a Palestinian village and Jewish community near Bethlehem. All are welcome here: our community will include an expanding circle of volunteers, and visitors from the region and worldwide.
Heaven's Field Farm gives a physical space to the kind of grass-roots programming we believe in to change violence into understanding. This is one of a number of initiatives our larger communities are doing to increase understanding and cooperation between those perceived as the most natural of enemies. We are partnered with Arabic-Hebrew language learning circles, a joint Israeli Palestinian quarterly journal "Maktub", and other non-politically oriented co-existence work; all projects of our sponsoring network- Eretz Shalom (Land of Peace).
Visit our English Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/177017932397979/ to see some of our activities and conversations, or come visit with us next time you are in the Holy Land.

We are turning to you - people from around the world, to make the first season a success. Our budget includes part-time salaries for 2 Palestinian and 2 Israeli staff, land rental, irrigation equipment, tools, and heirloom seeds from both Israeli and Palestinian seed banks. (see below and feel free to contact us for more details).

Heavens Field Farm is run by everyday people here who are saying enough with the status quo and making an audacious stand within their home communities- to acknowledge and meet the "Other." Help us get on our feet and carry the message to the many who are waiting for a place like this.

This project is a unique chance to build an island of cooperation in the heart of the conflict. While the West Bank's notoriety is for the actions of hatred - there is a quiet majority on both sides that wishes to see the end of the violence, and is willing to address the reality that both our peoples belong to this land and it is upon us to find ways to live here now with each other. Our slogan is - Heart of the conflict, heart of the solution.

Other Ways You Can Help

Let people know about our project!

Come visit or tell somebody you know who's coming to Israel/ Palestine about our project- hosting tour groups and volunteers is part of our long-term plan.

And if you know someone who may be interested in supporting our work- foundations or friends, publicists or videographers- we are open to helping this vision become the most productive reality.

Budget Items:

4 part-time salaries, publicity materials, small meeting space structure (hoop house), irrigation equipment, land rental, event budget.

We hope to begin supporting ourselves through the sale of our vegetables after first season and by hosting various groups to the area to meet with local co-operation efforts.

For more information please feel free to contact our English language liason:

Shaul Judelman- organicjew@gmail.com

Autumn in Audio: A Reportback on the Healing Justice Practice Space at the 2012 Allied Media Conference (Everywhere)
Interpreting for Social Justice (Minneapolis, MN)
Training in Healing and Transformation: A Multicultural Wellness Education Program of Holistic Practices (Milwaukee, WI and Detroit, MI)
Catholic Worker Farm Gathering (Dubuque, IA)
Heaven's Field Organic Farm (West Bank, Israel/Palestine)

8/1/12 8/1/12

August 2012 - Such a Boy

Hello Good People!

Weeks ago I was on the playground with Finn and Siobhan, and two slightly older boys turned up with nerf guns (or whatever the 2012 equivalent brand is), that shoot foam bullets. The boys holed up in two different towers and began shooting at each other. Finn ran back and forth between them trying to figure out how to involve himself in the older boys' game. Finally he settled for collecting used ammunition and returning it to the boys when they were ready to reload. Later when the boys tired of entertaining an almost-4 year old, they left the playground. Finn walked up to me and said, "Mommy, I want a gun." Well, you can imagine the conversation that ensued.

I had just watched a documentary called Tough Guise: Violence, Media, and the Crisis in Masculinity, examining why the vast majority of violence in our culture is perpetrated by men. The expert in the documentary, an anti-violence educator named Jackson Katz, noted that when reporting acts of violence in the media, we tend to only focus on the gender of the perpetrator if the she is a woman. I was particularly shocked to find that most reporting about violence perpetrated by young boys is redrawn as "kids killing kids" or "violence among teenagers," even though the vast majority of these kids are boys. Media reports also often use the passive voice to describe an act of violence, putting the focus on the victim instead of the perpetrator: i.e. "32 year old woman sexually assaulted in her home" rather than "30 year old man commits sexual assault in victim's home."

So I paid close attention to the media coverage of the tragedy in Colorado last month, and sure enough, there was little focus of the suspected shooter's identity as a man. The focus of coverage about James Holmes has so far extended primarily to reports that he was a grad student preparing to leave his program, and that he was a "loner." This incident, of yet another man murdering a group of people at random, has sparked no dialogue in the media about the relationship between masculinity and violence. In fact, the only news coverage I have come across yet that mentions the role of masculinity at all is an ill-conceived article on Slate.com about "why men still save women," reporting that three of the victims in Aurora, Colorado died throwing their bodies over their girlfriends or partners, and extrapolating an offensive thesis about the continued utility of men in our society as "protectors," even when their traditional roles as breadwinners and role models have been reversed or upended by changing cultural norms around women's power, and the economic recession. Ugh.

How can we even begin to address the realty of brutality and violence in our culture if we cannot own up to the fact that the vast majority of all violent acts are perpetrated by men? Not women. Not trans people. Not gender non-conforming or two-spirit people. Men. Here's a few stunning stats I learned from Tough Guise:

Over 85% of murders are committed by men, and of those committed by women, the vast majority are committed by women who are victims of domestic violence, and are convicted of murdering the men who had been battering them;
90% of people who commit violent physical assault are men;
95% of serious domestic violence is perpetrated by men, and it's been estimated that 1 in 4 males will use violence against their partners in their lifetime;
Over 95% of dating violence is committed by men, very often young men in their teens;
Studies have found that men are responsible for between 85-95% of child sexual abuse, whether the victims are male or female.

Why is this true? Why is it that so many men in our society are inflicting violence on themselves and others? We know that much violence is cyclical, that most men who commit violence grew up in households where they themselves were abused. We also know that as they grow, boys and men are surrounded by media images that connect "manhood" and "masculinity" with dominance, power, and control. Jackson Katz notes that the media helps to construct violent masculinity as as cultural norm: "In other words, violence isn't so much a deviation as it is an accepted part of masculinity." We give our boys guns, swords, and maces as toys. And when male-bodied children play with sticks as swords, use pushing or hitting to communicate their anger, or in other ways act out, we throw up our hands and say, "He's such a boy!"

This has to change, and not just for the sake of women, and trans folks, and gender non-conforming folks who are so often the victims of male violence. Statistically speaking, the majority of victims of violence by men are other men. We have a society-wide stake in shifting cultural norms of masculinity that reinforce violence as a survival mechanism in peer groups, as a communication mechanism for difficult emotions, and as a dominance mechanism for feeling threatened, frightened, or out of control.

One thing that we can do is begin interacting with children in ways that do not reinforce degrading and detrimental cultural norms of masculinity or femininity. I recently came across a great resource for this called "Children's Gender Self- Determination: A Practical Guide." In this accessible and short guide, blogger Jane Ward provides some helpful hints for confronting your own, and other people's, socialized tendency to project and reinforce problematic gender norms onto children. I think it's a great start. But in terms of turning back the tide of violence that emerges from violence normalized as masculine, my instinct says that the first thing we need to do is actually talk about it.

In this edition of Iambrown:

Queer Black August Retreat: Ancestral Presence and Healing Poetics for Queer People of Color (Durham, NC)
Support MAMA SANA Pregnancy and Women's Clinic (Austin, TX)
Micha Cardenas' Brilliant Allied Media Conference Keynote! (Everywhere!)
The Right to the City LA Urban Congress - September 12-14 (Los Angeles, CA)
Love Making Dances to offer Private Coaching Sessions! (New York, NY)
Vicissitudes: Underwater Sculpture Honoring Africans Killed During the Middle Passage (Grenada)

www.iambrown.org.
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Mobile Homecoming presents...Queer Black August Retreat: Ancestral Presence and Healing Poetics for Queer People of Color

July 10, 2012

Contact: Alexis Pauline Gumbs, 919-827-2702

Durham, NC - Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Ph.D and Julia Wallace, M.Div. will host Queer Black August: Ancestral Presence & Healing Poetics a retreat for QPOC and local POC allies August 15-20, 2012 at The Stone House near Durham, NC. Julia says, “the thread running through the intergenerational Queer Black August (QBA) gathering is accessing power: using creative forms to heal ourselves while healing our ancestors and generations to come.” There are 2 components that participants may engage over the course of the 5 days: 1) African Spirituality – spiritual practices from the Ifa tradition of the Yoruba; and 2) Healing Poetics - arts and embodiment through dance, music, laughter and play.

Portions of the retreat will be documented and the local community will be invited to witness and participate in some of the creations that come out of the process of performative and play activities. This retreat is a collaboration with Black Feminist Film School (bffs) and an opportunity to build relationships and practices that will be the foundation for an episodic variety show which begins production in 2013.

Alexis says, “This retreat is exciting because we are gathering an intergenerational community of artists and healers, and gathering our ancestors to affirm the work we are doing on this planet. When we heal each other our ancestors rejoice.”

Julia adds, “we created QBA in the spirit of historical practices such as Black August which commemorates African liberation and revolution in the Americas and the Combahee River Collective Black Feminist Retreats which built alignment and institutions by and for black women.” Alexis says, “this is a continuation of the two years that I, with the support of my community, have hosted free week-long gatherings where people from all over the country participated in intergenerational gatherings for healing and transformation in Durham, NC using the resources of Black Feminism.”

In past retreats created by Alexis, the Durham community opened their homes and donated food, supplies and myriad skills to make it possible for 4 different retreats in the last 2 years to be free and accessible; first for queer people of color and allies at Combahee Survival Revival Week; women and genderqueer people of color and our children at Motherourselves Bootcamp; then queer black warrior healers at Indigo Days; and most recently community accountable anti-racist scholars at Juneteenth Freedom Academy.

Alexis and Julia have been recognized in the May issue of the The Advocate - the leading gay magazine in America - on the “top 40 under 40” list for their creation of the nationally known Mobile Homecoming project. Mobile Homecoming is an intergenerational experiential archive project that amplifies generations of Black LGBTQ brilliance. Alexis and Julia have also been featured on the cover of Durham Magazine - that celebrates the city’s style and creativity - for a feature story suggesting that Durham, NC is the lesbian haven of the south. Some other national press includes Gay & Lesbian Quarterly (GLQ) journal, BITCH magazine and Makeshift magazine.

The Advocate says of it’s honorees, “these budding powerhouses, leaders in media, politics... are facilitating our future.”

Next up for Mobile Homecoming is learning about sustainable building and living practices that will allow LGBTQ communities to take care of their elders as they age. They will also be launching a fundraising campaign to resurrect Sojourner their RV (revolutionary vehicle) by acquiring another vehicle with a veggie fuel engine to model their vision of sustainable mobile community and media making.

More information can be found at:
http://www.mobilehomecoming.org/queer-black-august/ and http://blackfeministfilmschool.wordpress.com/

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Support MAMA SANA Pregnancy and Women's Clinic

Mama Sana is a pilot project starting in conjunction with Blackstock Family Clinic, Mamas of Color Rising, Sankofa Birth Companian group and volunteer midwives to address the disparities in birthing outcomes for low-income mothers of color in Austin, TX while also fostering individual and collective empowerment. In Travis County, the infant mortality rate was recorded as 5.8 per 1,000 live births for white women and 20.5 – or more than 150% higher – for Black women.Furthermore, access to prenatal care is a key factor in determining outcomes and over 25.9% of Latina women in Austin receive no prenatal care vs. 7.8% of white women. The Austin economic and healthcare "divide" impacts the lives of pregnant women and their future children. In order to address this, Mama Sana will provide free group prenatal care appointments with individual physical exams by midwives, as well as culturally competent emotional group support. A woman at Mama Sana can also choose to have a free birth companion (doula) and regular prenatal exercise classes. Women have access to all of these services in a coordinated and timely session.

The MAMA SANA Pregnancy and Women's Clinic grand opening is scheduled for September of 2012 and they need your help. Start now by making a monetary donation (if you can afford it) and by forwarding this email to others you know who may want to support this work. Here is a link to the donation page:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=NZWBVQVZK67UC

To find out more about MAMA SANA's work, check out the website at mamasanaclinic@wordpress.com

Please feel free to contact MAMA SANA at mamasanaclinc@gmail.com

Also, read more about this issue at:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/deadlydelivery.pdf
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/austin-has-taken-great-leap-backward-in-racial-2401413.html

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Micha Cardenas' Brilliant Allied Media Conference Keynote!

The 2012 Allied Media Conference Opening Ceremony featured Keynotes from Dream Hampton, Thenmozhi Soundararajan, and Micha Cardenas. Micha gifted our community with a second go at her brilliant presentation on how we can use decentralized technologies to interrupt violence that happens at the borders of countries, identities, and realities. Check it: http://transreal.org/2012/07/10/finding-home-allied-media-conference-2012/

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The Right to the City LA Urban Congress - September 12-14

SAVE THE DATE!
SEPTEMBER 12-14TH, 2012
The RTTC LA Urban Congress

On September 12th, 13th, and 14th, community based-organizations from all over the country will join the struggle against displacement and gentrification in Los Angeles at the Right to the City National Urban Congress. Our goal is to lift up the anti-displacement fights happening in working class communities of color in the United States with a primary focus on local struggles inLos Angeles. The communities and anti-displacement campaigns we seek to highlight include Boyle Heights, Chinatown, Koreatown, and South Los Angeles. We will weave together these community fights into a narrative of a burgeoning regional movement.

David Harvey, renowned scholar will be uniting theory and praxis by spending his days building with all of us and being the keynote address at this year's congress.

WHAT WILL GO DOWN IN LA? Our goal is twofold: Learn and Mobilize.

Learn: The RTTC LA Urban Congress will bring together community-based organizations, service agencies, and labor to learn from each other about displacement fights happening all over the U.S. Organizing groups across the country will have an opportunity to participate or facilitate model shares around: land-use justice organizing, street vending and the informal economy, national movement-building, transit justice, tenants’ rights, criminalization and anti-foreclosure organizing.

Mobilize: On September 13th and 14th, we will activate our bases and take to the streets. 2 (or maybe 3) large actions are planned for Boyle Heights, South LA, and Koreatown.

Day 1: Plenary on larger LA context, model shares, housing action
Day 2: Plenary on neighborhood based context, off & onsite model shares, and BIG MTA/Boyle Heights Action
Day 3: RTC internal business, David Harvey key note & panel (local, national, and international struggle), Koreatown action/block party finale!

RTTC NATIONAL MEMBER GROUP and ALLIES CHECKLIST:

Please note that at least 1 representative from every member group is expected to attend the congress in order to participate in the internal business of the alliance.
There will be a formal registration form ready and a prep call for RTTC member groups in mid August 
Right to the City will cover all expenses for 1 representative from each member group in good standing. Groups are asked to contribute $100 to help cover the cost of that representative's attendance. If additional members would like to attend, the group will need to fundraise to cover their costs and communicate this to RTTC national to make reservations in a timely fashion.
Additional fundraising is happening to help support the participation of at least 1 more rep per organization as well as key resource allies.
Other allies and interested participants who are not in the Right to the City Alliance are invited to attend Day 1 and Day 2 but will have to cover the costs of travel/ hotel and/or pay a registration fee. Details will be available soon.

For more information:

Nationally- Tony Romano, RTTC Director of Organizing, tony@righttothecity.org

In Los Angeles- Mike Dennis, Organizing Director for East LA Community Corporation: (O) 323.604.1958 | (E) mdennis@elacc.org

HOSTING GROUPS- (list in formation) Strategic Actions for a Just Economy , Koreatown Immigrants Worker's Alliance,East LA Community Corporation, Esperanza Community Housing Corporation, Union de Vecinos, Proyecto Pastoral at Dolores Mission, Shared Spaces, Legacy LA, Innercity Struggle, Southeast Asian Community Alliance

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Love Making Dances to offer Private Coaching Sessions!

Zahava of Love Making Dances is offering private coaching sessions for women after many requests. She is completing a year long training for private wellness coaching and offering half price sessions for the Summer! Learn more here.

Who Comes for Coaching?

Women who are dancers, yogis, & performing artists who want to deepen their artistry as a spiritual path & feel more comfortable expressing their sexuality.
Women who want to ignite their love life & align it with their whole life.
Women who are highly intuitive & dedicated to a spiritual path who want to feel more grounded, playful, and at ease in the physical sensual world.

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Vicissitudes: Underwater Sculpture Honoring Africans Killed During the Middle Passage

Located in the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Grenada under water, these beautiful sculptures honor our African Ancestors who were thrown overboard the slave ships during the Middle Passage of the African Holocaust. The work is by artist Jason de Caires Taylor. Taylor's art is constructed to be assimilated by the ocean and transformed from inert objects into living breathing coral reefs.

http://www.underwatersculpture.com/pages/gallery/vicissitudes.html

Hello Good People!

Over 85% of murders are committed by men, and of those committed by women, the vast majority are committed by women who are victims of domestic violence, and are convicted of murdering the men who had been battering them;
90% of people who commit violent physical assault are men;
95% of serious domestic violence is perpetrated by men, and it's been estimated that 1 in 4 males will use violence against their partners in their lifetime;
Over 95% of dating violence is committed by men, very often young men in their teens;
Studies have found that men are responsible for between 85-95% of child sexual abuse, whether the victims are male or female.

Queer Black August Retreat: Ancestral Presence and Healing Poetics for Queer People of Color (Durham, NC)
Support MAMA SANA Pregnancy and Women's Clinic (Austin, TX)
Micha Cardenas' Brilliant Allied Media Conference Keynote! (Everywhere!)
The Right to the City LA Urban Congress - September 12-14 (Los Angeles, CA)
Love Making Dances to offer Private Coaching Sessions! (New York, NY)
Vicissitudes: Underwater Sculpture Honoring Africans Killed During the Middle Passage (Grenada)

www.iambrown.org.
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Mobile Homecoming presents...Queer Black August Retreat: Ancestral Presence and Healing Poetics for Queer People of Color

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Support MAMA SANA Pregnancy and Women's Clinic

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Micha Cardenas' Brilliant Allied Media Conference Keynote!

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The Right to the City LA Urban Congress - September 12-14

SAVE THE DATE!
SEPTEMBER 12-14TH, 2012
The RTTC LA Urban Congress

Please note that at least 1 representative from every member group is expected to attend the congress in order to participate in the internal business of the alliance.
There will be a formal registration form ready and a prep call for RTTC member groups in mid August 
Right to the City will cover all expenses for 1 representative from each member group in good standing. Groups are asked to contribute $100 to help cover the cost of that representative's attendance. If additional members would like to attend, the group will need to fundraise to cover their costs and communicate this to RTTC national to make reservations in a timely fashion.
Additional fundraising is happening to help support the participation of at least 1 more rep per organization as well as key resource allies.
Other allies and interested participants who are not in the Right to the City Alliance are invited to attend Day 1 and Day 2 but will have to cover the costs of travel/ hotel and/or pay a registration fee. Details will be available soon.

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Love Making Dances to offer Private Coaching Sessions!

Women who are dancers, yogis, & performing artists who want to deepen their artistry as a spiritual path & feel more comfortable expressing their sexuality.
Women who want to ignite their love life & align it with their whole life.
Women who are highly intuitive & dedicated to a spiritual path who want to feel more grounded, playful, and at ease in the physical sensual world.

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Vicissitudes: Underwater Sculpture Honoring Africans Killed During the Middle Passage

http://www.underwatersculpture.com/pages/gallery/vicissitudes.html

7/6/12 7/6/12

July 2012 News - I've Been There

Hello Good People!

It's hard to describe the feeling of the Allied Media Conference - the learning that happens there, the celebration and dancing and holding, the tears and the pain and the ferocity with which we love, protect, and lift up our comrades and friends. It is truly unlike any conference or event I have experienced, in large part because of the balance we effect between sharing our transformative work within the struggle, and sharing who we understand ourselves to be outside of the struggle. I think the easiest way to show you, if you weren't there, is snap shots. Here's what I did last weekend:

I facilitated a conversation between healers and health justice activists from around the country about moving toward developing a national network and a national gathering for Healing Justice in 2013.
I led an orientation for all of the healers and health workers and volunteers who would be working in the Healing Justice Practice Space throughout the duration of the Allied Media Conference, and brilliantly balanced the work of holding the space with my fellow coordinators and she-roes: Triana Kazaleh-Sirdenis, Maryse Mitchell-Brody, and Adaku Utah!
I attended the premiere of Secret Survivors, an incredible documentary about the hidden epidemic of child sexual abuse in America (1 in 4 girls, 1 in 6 boys experience sexual abuse as children), and a conversation with the filmmakers and survivors who bravely put this piece together.
I attended a panel called Crip/Sick Sex, a confidential and brave group of disability justice activists talking about their personal experiences of sexuality and sexual relationships within and outside of the disability community.
I attended a collective science fiction writing workshop, brilliantly facilitated by my sister, Adrienne Maree Brown, and subsequently the launch of a Transformative Justice Science Fiction Strategic Reader, with contributions from Adrienne Maree Brown, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, and Jenna Peters-Golden.
I served as a Point Person in the Healing Justice Practice Space, managing emergent health needs, making folks welcome and comfortable, and watching as all of the spots for giving and receiving healing quickly filled up!
I WENT DANCING! Moms on my list, you know what a feat this is! I moved my body to the slow jams of hip hop violinist Emily Wells, and the transporting rhythms of hip hop/experimental DJ Waajeed.
I stayed up late talking social evolution and the "species self" with transmedia science fiction storyteller Thenmozhi Soundararajan.
I shared meals with many people I love and many people I was meeting for the first time!
I was asked to collaborate on a science fiction comic with a Seattle-based artist!

Can you see why I think the Allied Media Conference might be the dopest thing ever? When I stand there in the power of my community, I realize that this is the planet I want to live on, and the fact that this event exists at all, in celebration and in pain, means that that other world is possible. AND...I've been there.

In this edition of Iambrown:

Join my CSA for Racial and Economic Justice!
Doula Training for Philly-based People of Color! (Philadelphia, PA)
Something Grown Together (Chicago, IL)
The Headwaters Foundation Fall 2012 Social Justice Leadership Institute (Minneapolis, MN)
3rd Annual ‘Growing Roots’ Agronomic University session (Dubuque, IA)

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Join my CSA for Racial and Economic Justice!

As many of you know, I am co-developing a pilot workshop called the “Communities Curriculum” under the auspices of the Common Fire Foundation. With my esteemed colleague and fellow board member Sean Ritchey, I will be creating a workshop that supports participants in building intentional communities grounded in the theory and practice of racial healing and economic justice.

As you can imagine, this is a big job. Common Fire is working tirelessly to secure long-term funding for this project. In the meantime, Sean and I are looking to our community at large to help us raise money in a way that represents our values and our firm belief that the resources we need to heal our communities can be found within our communities. So I am asking you to become a part of a new kind of CSA, where you donate money to make it possible for me to do this critical work. Learn more about how this works, and why it works by checking out the Donate page of my website:

Learn More: http://www.iambrown.org/node/87

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Doula Training for Philly-based People of Color!

The Philly Collaborative for Reproductive Justice & Support (PCRJS) is currently accepting applications for a doula training for people of color who are committed to providing doula services in the Philadelphia area.

The three-day workshop will be facilitated by trainers from Ancient Song Doula Services, which is an organization based in Brooklyn committed to reclaiming the ancient principles of birthing, reaching more women of color, and lowering the infant mortality rate (http://www.ancientsongdoulaservices.com/).

What: An intensive three-day training in how to support someone through pregnancy, labor, and childbirth
Who: People of color interested in providing birth, postpartum and/or abortion support applying the doula model of care
When: August 3-5, 2012 (Friday 10am-4pm, Saturday 10am-5pm, Sunday 10am-3pm)
Where: North Philly at a wheelchair-accessible location accessible by public transportation
Cost: Free! In an effort to increase access to valuable skills and build greater doula capacity for under-served communities, this three-day training will be free to participants. In exchange, PCRJS asks attendees to:

Commit to participating fully in all three days of the training workshop;
Commit to providing birth, postpartum and/or abortion doula support in Philadelphia upon being trained;
Join with PCRJS in its ongoing efforts to educate the community about the critical role of doulas in supporting people across the full spectrum of pregnancy
Provide a $20 deposit upon acceptance of a spot in the training, which will be returned at the completion of the weekend (or, alternatively, which participants may donate towards the cost of the space and food).

Note: Childcare will be available (please indicate specific childcare needs on your application form). Unfortunately, the August training will be accessible only to English-speakers.

What is PCRJS?
PCRJS is an all-volunteer group of organizers, educators, care-givers, community activists, parents and doulas who are committed to providing support across the full spectrum of pregnancy -- including during birth, miscarriage, abortion, and adoption -- and helping to build community healing, health, and resiliency. We draw inspiration from the reproductive justice framework, which aims to transform power iniquities and create long-term systemic change. We believe reproductive justice will be achieved when all people have the social, political, and economic power and resources to make healthy decisions about our gender, bodies, sexuality and families for ourselves and our communities.

PCRJS is excited to be hosting this doula training for people of color and looks forward to working with the participants after the training to identify opportunities for the new doulas to practice their skills and connect with pregnant and parenting people in Philadelphia.

Application Details
We will be accepting applications for the doula training on a rolling basis until July 6 at 5pm. Accepted individuals will be notified by July 10 and will be asked to commit to reserving their spot (with the $20 deposit, refundable upon completion of the training) by July 15.

Applications can be submitted by email to pcrjsworkshops@gmail.com
OR by snail mail to:

PCRJS c/o Kim Murray
1004 S. 49th St
Philadelphia, PA 19143

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Something Grown Together

an autonomously organized social justice institute

@The Center on Halsted, Chicago, IL,

July 22nd - July 27th

from the website:

Something Grown Together is a week-long institute organized by a network of people across the country. We are committed to gaining the tools and analysis to engage in social justice work in our communities, as well as teaching what we know so that others can do the same.

Through different workshops and projects, this conference introduces social justice work at an introductory level but also contains a second and third track for attendees of previous years and other individuals with more experience.

Some Workshop Offerings:

Grassroots fundraising
Group facilitation, leadership, and decision-making
Dialogue-based strategies for change
Organizing community events for social change
Using media & art in social change work
Liberative identity work
Embodied activism
Privilege and anti-oppression models

It is vital to the institute's success and the personal growth of each individual involved that a safe space is provided for everyone. It is of high priority that the institute be inclusive and non-discriminatory. We aim to be extremely conscious of the privileged and marginalized identities of both the attendants and the planning committee and to facilitate dialogue within the institute so that we can work together while celebrating our differences.

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The Headwaters Foundation Fall 2012 Social Justice Leadership Institute

Interested in leading the next generation of Social Justice Philanthropy? Take part in the Social Justice Leadership Institute this fall!

Information Sessions June 19 and June 28

The Headwaters Foundation for Justice is now recruiting for the Fall 2012 Social Justice Leadership Institute. If you or someone you know might be interested in joining this year's Institute, attend one of two information sessions being held June 19 at Common Roots Cafe andJune 28 at Open Book Center to learn more. Deadline for applications is July 15.

The Social Justice Leadership Institute is a participatory model of fundraising for social change and building community. We're looking for a group of emerging Twin Cities leaders who are interested in investing themselves in the community to better understand local injustices and bring about transformative change. Participants will be part of a group of approximately 25 people coming from diverse backgrounds to learn, reflect, and act together. Participants will develop and improve their skills as donor organizers and grassroots fundraisers, working together to strategically support underfunded social justice organizing in Minnesota. Click herefor further information.

The Headwaters Foundation is a catalyst for social, racial, economic and environmental justice. The Foundation was established in 1984 with the belief that the power for fundamental social change is in the hands of ordinary people. Through grantmaking and organizational assistance, Headwaters focuses on grassroots efforts, engaging and partnering with a committed community of donors and allies in its work. As a public foundation, Headwaters raises all of the money it gives away in grants. The Foundation distributes over $400,000 annually to groups working for social change. In its history, Headwaters has provided organizational support to more than 870 projects and trained 2,500 community leaders through its capacity building program. To date, Headwaters has distributed $9.3 million dollars across 3,405 grants. As a member of The Funding Exchange, Headwaters is part of a national network of community foundations committed to addressing social justice at the grassroots level.

For further information on Headwaters Foundation and the Social Justice Leadership Institute go to http://www.headwatersfoundation.org/get-involved/social-justice-leadership-institute.

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3rd Annual ‘Growing Roots’ Agronomic University session

September 10—14th, 2012

Theme: The Technological Question

New Hope Catholic Worker Farm & Agronomic University

Dubuque, Iowa

Our lives are saturated by technology. And yet, generally speaking, we spent little time discerning technology’s impact on our lives. In this 5-day, integral learning (around four issues in intellectual labor and 4 hours of bodily labor) workshop we’ll deal with our technological context. Through reading and discussion, skill sharing and farm labor, silence and conviviality we’ll consider a number of critical questions centered on technology:

What is technology?
Is it neutral?
What technologies might we want to embrace? Resist?
How do radical communities, such as the Amish, discern appropriate use of technology?
What value is there in fasting from certain technologies?
How can we raise children responsibly in our technological society?
How, finally, can we maintain our humanity and integrity in our world?

Readings will be mailed out upon registration.

Arrival is on the night of September 9th and the workshop ends on the afternoon of the 14th before some of us head 40 miles south to Sugar Creek, Iowa for the annual Midwest Catholic Worker gathering that weekend.

Housing: Plenty of outdoor space for tents. Limited indoor space.

Cost: To cover costs of each participant is around 40 dollars per person. But we invite you to engage with us in a Gift Economy. We ask that you pay back or pay forward according to what is meaningful to you. To enter into the realm of the gift is an experiment we invite you into. Gift culture, both ancient and elusive in our capitalist culture, is what we are striving—imperfectly—towards.

To register for this event, please call Eric (no emails please) at 563.556.0987. Space is limited.

In Peace,

New Hope Catholic Worker Farm
6697 Mitchell Mill Rd.
La Motte, Iowa (8 miles from downtown Dubuque) 52054

Hello Good People!

I facilitated a conversation between healers and health justice activists from around the country about moving toward developing a national network and a national gathering for Healing Justice in 2013.
I led an orientation for all of the healers and health workers and volunteers who would be working in the Healing Justice Practice Space throughout the duration of the Allied Media Conference, and brilliantly balanced the work of holding the space with my fellow coordinators and she-roes: Triana Kazaleh-Sirdenis, Maryse Mitchell-Brody, and Adaku Utah!
I attended the premiere of Secret Survivors, an incredible documentary about the hidden epidemic of child sexual abuse in America (1 in 4 girls, 1 in 6 boys experience sexual abuse as children), and a conversation with the filmmakers and survivors who bravely put this piece together.
I attended a panel called Crip/Sick Sex, a confidential and brave group of disability justice activists talking about their personal experiences of sexuality and sexual relationships within and outside of the disability community.
I attended a collective science fiction writing workshop, brilliantly facilitated by my sister, Adrienne Maree Brown, and subsequently the launch of a Transformative Justice Science Fiction Strategic Reader, with contributions from Adrienne Maree Brown, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, and Jenna Peters-Golden.
I served as a Point Person in the Healing Justice Practice Space, managing emergent health needs, making folks welcome and comfortable, and watching as all of the spots for giving and receiving healing quickly filled up!
I WENT DANCING! Moms on my list, you know what a feat this is! I moved my body to the slow jams of hip hop violinist Emily Wells, and the transporting rhythms of hip hop/experimental DJ Waajeed.
I stayed up late talking social evolution and the "species self" with transmedia science fiction storyteller Thenmozhi Soundararajan.
I shared meals with many people I love and many people I was meeting for the first time!
I was asked to collaborate on a science fiction comic with a Seattle-based artist!

In this edition of Iambrown:

Join my CSA for Racial and Economic Justice!
Doula Training for Philly-based People of Color! (Philadelphia, PA)
Something Grown Together (Chicago, IL)
The Headwaters Foundation Fall 2012 Social Justice Leadership Institute (Minneapolis, MN)
3rd Annual ‘Growing Roots’ Agronomic University session (Dubuque, IA)

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Join my CSA for Racial and Economic Justice!

Learn More: http://www.iambrown.org/node/87

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Doula Training for Philly-based People of Color!

Commit to participating fully in all three days of the training workshop;
Commit to providing birth, postpartum and/or abortion doula support in Philadelphia upon being trained;
Join with PCRJS in its ongoing efforts to educate the community about the critical role of doulas in supporting people across the full spectrum of pregnancy
Provide a $20 deposit upon acceptance of a spot in the training, which will be returned at the completion of the weekend (or, alternatively, which participants may donate towards the cost of the space and food).

PCRJS c/o Kim Murray
1004 S. 49th St
Philadelphia, PA 19143

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Something Grown Together

an autonomously organized social justice institute

@The Center on Halsted, Chicago, IL,

July 22nd - July 27th

from the website:

Grassroots fundraising
Group facilitation, leadership, and decision-making
Dialogue-based strategies for change
Organizing community events for social change
Using media & art in social change work
Liberative identity work
Embodied activism
Privilege and anti-oppression models

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The Headwaters Foundation Fall 2012 Social Justice Leadership Institute

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What is technology?
Is it neutral?
What technologies might we want to embrace? Resist?
How do radical communities, such as the Amish, discern appropriate use of technology?
What value is there in fasting from certain technologies?
How can we raise children responsibly in our technological society?
How, finally, can we maintain our humanity and integrity in our world?

6/8/12 6/8/12

June News - Collective Healing from Collective Harm

Hello Good People!

The project I have been hard at work on for the last six months (!!!) reaches fruition at the end of June: The Healing Justice Practice Space at the 2012 Allied Media Conference (AMC). The Healing Justice Practice Space is an all-gendered, all-bodied space for practicing and receiving healing and health care. In our second year at the AMC, we will offer all participants at the conference massage therapy, energy work, community acupuncture, herbal therapy, counseling, first aid, art therapy, dance, yoga, counseling, and more! We will also offer progressive and radical health care practitioners from across the country the opportunity to network, support, and share resources with one another for creating accessible health care in their communities.

It is incredibly exciting to play a critical role in bringing healing justice into the national network/community of the AMC - there is a growing recognition across the social justice movement that achieving justice requires intentional space for collective healing, because social injustice is a form of collective harm. There is also a growing recognition of the manifold ways that we experience and then hold oppression and injustice in our bodies and in the bodies of our communities. It's as clear as the epidemic incidences of diabetes in poor communities. It's as subtle as the hidden scourge of depression and addiction in middle income and wealthy communities. Racial, gender, and economic injustice and disparity compromises the health and well-being of all members of society, whether or not they are directly impacted by those disparities.

The Allied Media Conference is one of the most inspiring and transformative gatherings I have the privilege to attend, particularly because it brings together a true diversity of communities who are impacted by injustice, and who are using media in innovative ways to organize and transform their communities. I strongly recommend attending if you can, and info on how to do that is below. If you can't come and jam with us, you can support scholarships for many of the amazing healers who are coming to work in the Healing Justice Practice Space. In return for your support, you get a collection of immune power powders - delicious herbal medicine can be used in water, teas, and smoothies, to build, enrich, and boost your immune system. I already ordered mine!

Happy summer to you. As we move into the next phase of 2012, I am filled with great hope and steely dedication. Witnessing the re-election of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, and the growing hostility and polarization as fear-filled social conservatives attempt to permanently ban gay marriage here in Minnesota, I am settling into my own sense of transformation as the long road. Like my ancestors before me, I am forced to acknowledge the possibility that I may not personally experience the freedom from injustice I am striving for in my lifetime. But it is enough to know that my children might.

In this edition of Iambrown:

The 2012 Allied Media Conference is coming up! (Detroit, MI)
Renewing Heart & Hope: A Retreat for Social Justice Educators and Trainers (Chelsea, MI)
Offerings from Love Making Dances (New York, NY)
Celebrating Thirty Years: Global Somatics Conference and Move- A- Thon (Minneapolis, MN)

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The 2012 Allied Media Conference is coming up!

REGISTER TODAY

The deadline to register for housing in the Wayne State dorms has been extended to Monday 6/11 at high noon. Make your reservation today!

The full AMC2012 schedule is now live and available for your viewing pleasure. Explore the new session browser that AMP has been diligently developing with our partners, The Work Department and take in the wonder of this year's 150+ workshops, panels, strategy sessions, tours and caucuses. This year, in addition to browsing content, you can bookmark sessions and plan your path through the immensity of the AMC.

We are excited to tell you about the AMC2012 Opening Ceremony. The Opening Cermeony will feature a three-part panel about storytelling and the fate of the world with presentations by transmedia science fiction storyteller Thenmozhi Soundararajan; writer, filmmaker and social and gender justice activist from Detroit,dream hampton; and Micha Cárdenas, an artist/theorist who works in performance, wearable electronics, hacktivism and critical gender studies. It will include a tribute to Detroit poet, D. Blair, featuring new works by an incredible lineup of Detroit poets and will close with a performance by the Ruth Ellis Center Voguers and J-Setters. Make sure you're there, 6pm in the Community Arts Auditorium.

As you make your travel and housing plans for AMC2012, use the AMPtalk message boards to find carpool collaborators, community housing options and much more. If you're a Detroiter, interested in opening up your home to fascinating out-of-town AMC participant, be sure to make a post on the housing board.

Support all of the amazing collaborative fundraising efforts to get our communities to the AMC, by visiting the AMPstore. If you're a New Yorker, looking for a cheap, fun way to get to the AMC, you can also purchase tickets on the NYC2AMC bus.

Last but not least, we advise you to get your bowling skills tight and select your karaoke anthem, in preparation for the AMC2012 Bowling, Music & Karaoke Extravaganza, Friday 6/29. This Friday night party of the AMC will feature performances by Abstract Random, Jeecy and the Jungle and Jöjjön.

We can't wait to see you in Detroit.

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Renewing Heart & Hope: A Retreat for Social Justice Educators and Trainers

Friday, June 29 & Saturday, June 30, 2012

Registration has begun for Renewing Heart & Hope: A Retreat for Social Justice Educators and Trainers. If your spirit longs for rejuvenation, deeper connection with other social justice educators, and the nurture of a beautiful natural setting, we encourage you to join us for this unique retreat. Please help us spread the word by sharing this announcement widely.

Facilitating groups and educating for social change can be a source of great energy and joy. This work can also lead to frustration and exhaustion when we experience multiple setbacks or fail to find ways to nourish our bodies and souls. Too often, we become so absorbed in the demands of our work that we grow forgetful of our need for each other. This retreat offers a different way.

Imagine if you had time and space to...

Be with others who share a deep and abiding commitment to social change
Share with colleagues what is life-giving; what is depleting in this work
Meet and learn from colleagues engaged in many different realms of social justice education and training
Name the losses and frustrations in a community that can hold the grief
Celebrate the breakthroughs with people who can share the joy
Soak up the beauty of the woods and lakeside property at the Michigan Friends Center.

If your spirit longs for rejuvenation, deeper connection with other social justice educators, and the nurture of a beautiful natural setting, we invite you to be part of this unique retreat.
Facilitator-guides for our time together will be Monique Savage and Melanie Morrison

DATES: Friday, June 29 & Saturday, June 30, 2012. 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. each day.
LOCATION: The Michigan Friends Center in Chelsea, Michigan, has 92 acres of lakefront property. It is 20 miles from Ann Arbor and 60 miles from Detroit. The facility is barrier-free.
COST: $150. Snacks, beverages, and lunch provided each day. Partial scholarships available.

Overnight accommodations are available at local hotels and Bed and Breakfasts.You may also bring a tent and camp for free at the center.
To Register

You may register online with a credit card at the Allies for Change website: www.alliesforchange.org, or download a registration form and send it with a deposit. For more information about Renewing Heart and Hope, email Melanie Morrison.

About the Facilitators
Monique Savage is director of the Counseling Services at Adrian College and an Allies for Change training partner. As an anti-oppression educator, she has 25 years experience designing and leading multicultural programs throughout the country. Monique has partnered with the Michigan State University Extension diversity training team for the past 15 years and is a frequent presenter at the Leaven Center in Lyons, Michigan. She specializes in issues that impact African American women and is much sought after as a speaker.

Melanie S. Morrison is executive director ofAllies for Change. She is a seasoned anti-oppression educator, activist, and author with 25 years experience designing and facilitating transformational group process. In 1994, she co-founded Doing Our Own Work, an intensive anti-racism program for white people and has co-facilitated this program for 17 consecutive years. She believes it is possible to grow ever more aware of the depth and complexity of systemic injustice without surrendering our capacity for compassion, joy, and hope.

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Offerings from Love Making Dances

Yoga for the Sexual Priestess
Intro: Sunday June 10, 12 - 2 pm

Learn more and Pay the $30 Class fee online by visiting Zahava's website.

Join a beautiful group of women to connect with the loving sexual embodiment of our souls. This class uses a movement practice to fully express orgasmic openings and invoke pleasure as a devotion to Life. We will engage the skeletal, soul, organ, sexual, chakra, muscular, collective and ancestral anatomies expanding our personal practice into a whole context. Rocking, undulation and vibration are qualities of movement not usually found in a yoga class. We will engage them with vocal toning to invoke transformation. These movements deeply access our life force energy and naturally occur during embodied transformations including orgasm, deep grieving, and soul shaking laughter. Note: the intro classes are clothed.

Benefits:
· Release excess nervous energy to strengthen boundaries & focus
· Enhance trust and respect in your intimate relationships
· Open passionate communication between heart & sex center
· Rejuvenate your sexual & creative nature
· Connect with powerful loving women

Who is the Sexual Priestess? How does modern yoga cultivate masculine energy? Read Zahava's OccupyPassion.com blog!

Location: Solstice Studio 68 W 39th st, 3 fl (at Sixth Ave)

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Celebrating Thirty Years: Global Somatics Conference and Move- A- Thon
July 14-22, 2012

Green River Dance for Global Somatics School for Somatic Movement Education/Therapy, Bodywork and Energy Medicine
2716 E. 26th Street, Minneapolis, MN 55406
Director Suzanne River
Register On Line at www.globalsomatics.com

GS Conference Pricing
Global Pass: You can attend the whole conference! $600
Early bird discount $440 if register by June 1 and $500 if register by July 1
Conscious Embodiment: Six morning classes taught by Suzanne River with GS Workbook $300

River Pass: Any five classes (one morning course allowed!) $100
Green Day Pass: $90 for one full day
Drop -in:
9:30-12:30 $60
1:30-3:30 $30
4:00-5:30 $20

Several free events (*starred)

Suggested donation $10 for concerts on Sunday 7/15 and Saturday 7/21

Global Somatics Bodywork Registration required $20-$100

July 14-22 Calendar of Events
Saturday July 14 Global Somatics Spirit

Sunday July 15 Global Somatics Art
Monday July 16 Global Somatics Yoga
Tuesday July 17 Global Somatics Dance
Wednesday July 18 Global Somatics Theatre
Thursday July 19 Global Somatics Children
Friday July 20 Global Somatics Activism
Saturday July 21 Global Somatics MOVE- A- THON
Sunday July 22 Global Somatics Bodywork

Hello Good People!

In this edition of Iambrown:

The 2012 Allied Media Conference is coming up! (Detroit, MI)
Renewing Heart & Hope: A Retreat for Social Justice Educators and Trainers (Chelsea, MI)
Offerings from Love Making Dances (New York, NY)
Celebrating Thirty Years: Global Somatics Conference and Move- A- Thon (Minneapolis, MN)

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The 2012 Allied Media Conference is coming up!

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Renewing Heart & Hope: A Retreat for Social Justice Educators and Trainers

Friday, June 29 & Saturday, June 30, 2012

Be with others who share a deep and abiding commitment to social change
Share with colleagues what is life-giving; what is depleting in this work
Meet and learn from colleagues engaged in many different realms of social justice education and training
Name the losses and frustrations in a community that can hold the grief
Celebrate the breakthroughs with people who can share the joy
Soak up the beauty of the woods and lakeside property at the Michigan Friends Center.

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Offerings from Love Making Dances

Yoga for the Sexual Priestess
Intro: Sunday June 10, 12 - 2 pm

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Celebrating Thirty Years: Global Somatics Conference and Move- A- Thon
July 14-22, 2012

5/4/12 5/4/12

May 2012 News - Deep Thoughts

join my CSA to support racial justice! learn more here.

Hello Good People!

As I sat down to write this month's newsletter, I found myself in a posture that I am often in these days: leaning over the table, head in my hands, struggling to sum up the vastness and complexity of the transition I find myself in, struggling to put words to something I am not yet used to articulating - because I am still in it - and in the end, coming up short. Sound bites feel most comfortable: "I am going thru puberty. Again." Or "Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes." Or "Whew, saturn is Re.Turn.Ing."

I have reached a turning point in my life and my work, a point of profound reflection and evaluation of what my work has been, and frighteningly open expansion on all that it could be. In this oceanic and emotional process, it is my core sense of self that is struggling to remain afloat. I feel like a woman trying to remember herself (I welcome love notes as reminders), grasping onto one-liners and deep thoughts to give meaning to the chaos. And reading my horoscope. A lot.

My sister Adrienne, who is dope and brilliant and has a blog, recently wrote to me that she has remembered that she is more valuable than her work, and that the most important thing to the people who love her is her happiness. I sobbed like a little baby when she shared that with me because I realized that in my machinations about what I should be doing with myself, I had forgotten my actual SELF. Before I was ever a facilitator, an organizer, a theologian, a musician, a writer, an actress, a dancer, a mother, a partner, a producer of monthly newsletters and deep thoughts, I was a valuable person. And if I left off of any of those identities tomorrow - by force or by choice - I would still be a valuable person.

So as I move into and through this process of deep re-evaluation, I do it from the place of protecting this thing I now understand as true: I am the thing that is valuable, and yet I cannot attach a value to myself. But if I see myself only through the lens of my work, attaching value to myself is exactly what I do. Who do I want to be working with? What do I need in order to sustain my practice and be happy? What do I deserve in a friendship, a collaboration, a political framework? These are essential questions for me, believe it or not. Like most organizers, I talk a big game about sustainability and still find myself on verge of burnout half of the time. I teach my students to trust the process and let go of ego, while I am scrambling to retain control of my own experience. How often are we working counter to our own wisdom?

So this spring and summer, I plan to plant a lot of vegetables and water them and watch them grow. I plan to write a short story once a week, so that my wild dreams can find a home and my mind can get some creative exercise. I plan to take a real break from some of my burdens. I will remember myself. I will remember.

In this edition of Iambrown:

Medicine is Media! An Herbal Medicine Fundraiser for the 2012 AMC Healing Justice Practice Space (EVERYWHERE)
Basic Midwifery Skills Practicum - May 5-6 (NEW YORK CITY)
Spreading the Health Conference - May 4 - 13th (CHICAGO)
Refocus the Frame: Turning the Lens on Race and Racism - May 10 (MINNEAPOLIS)
The Great Republic of Rough and Ready at Union Hall - May 10 (NEW YORK CITY)
Apply to Volunteer in the 2012 Allied Media Conference Healing Justice Practice Space (DETROIT)

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Medicine is Media! An Herbal Medicine Fundraiser for the 2012 AMC Healing Justice Practice Space

Support Healers Traveling to the 2012 AMC by purchasing Immune Power Powders! For an exciting limited time only, donate $40 or more and receive a unique, handmade “Immune Power Powder” Gift Pack from Good Fight Herb Co. There are only 30 gift packs available, so order yours now! Your donation will directly support travel scholarships for healers and health practitioners who are attending the 2012 Allied Media Conference to offer their gifts and services in the Healing Justice Practice Space (more on the Practice Space below).

The Immune Power Powders Gift Pack includes 3 custom crafted medicinal formulas packaged in beautiful glass corked vials complete with instructions and containing about 20 servings each. The Immune Power Powders Contain :

Immune Builder Powder. A daily use powder to deeply strengthen your body’s defense mechanisms against everything that brings your immune system down, including : viruses & bacteria, emotional, physical and environmental stressors.
Vitamin C Powder. Like Emergen-C without the fizz, this delicious powder supplies your body with apower punch of immune boosting vitamin C.
Immunity Enricher. Made with yellow dock, molasses, and nettle, this powder is packed with iron, potassium, calcium and other nourishing vitamins and minerals your body needs to maintain a hard-working immune system.

Donation details: To make your donation and receive one of these unique, handmade medicinal gift packs, visit https://store.alliedmedia.org/amc2012-immunity-boost. Shipping is included in the price of the package. Additional donations are welcome and appreciated. You can make a donation of any amount to the Practice Space, but only a donation of $40 or more will earn you an Immune Powder Power Pack!

What is the Healing Justice Practice Space?
The Healing Justice Practice Space is an all-gender, all-bodied, inclusive and accessible space for practicing and receiving healing. We will offer the AMC community massage therapy, energy work, community acupuncture, herbal therapy, counseling, first aid, art therapy, dance, yoga, and more! The HJPS will also provide skill-sharing, creative documentation of our process, and 101 workshops on health and healing justice and its intersections with media-based organizing. Together we will build an in-house and online Resource Center to hold the incredible wealth of information and strategies developed by fierce healers and activists around the country. Our work uplifts and politicizes the role of health and healing in our movements as a critical part of the world we are building. We recognize that medicine is media, that how we heal ourselves is directly related to how we engage in individual and collective transformation.

For more information about this fundraiser, contact Autumn Brown: autumnmeghan@gmail.com

Information about the medicine maker, Lauren Giambrone: http://goodfightherbco.com/?page_id=2.
Good Fight Herb Co: http://www.goodfightherbco.com/

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Basic Midwifery Skills Practicum - May 5-6

This two day hands-on training will introduce doulas and aspiring midwives to the art of the prenatal exam, basic assessment of vitals, palpation of the pregnant belly, practitioner-client relationship skills, and gentle gynecological exams.

When: May 5-6th Saturday & Sunday 10am-6pm
Cost: $250
Location: Park Slope, Brooklyn

Registration:
Payment can be made via paypal at chantiajoy@gmail.com. Payment plans available, call for more information.

Questions?
Contact either Alyssa DeConto: 508-737-9520 or Siena Butler: 612-723-5552

About Chanti:
Chanti is a certified professional midwife, pre and perinatal birth therapist, hypnobirthing instructor, prenatal yoga and embodied anatomy yoga teacher, massage therapist specializing in biodynamic craniosacral therapy, acupressure, and chi nei tsang, infant massage instructor, lactation specialist, and western trained herbalist. Chanti has recently relocated to Brooklyn from the west coast and is delighted to be sharing her passions with the birth community. For more information about her offerings visit her website: www.embodiedbeginnings.com

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Spreading the Health Conference - May 4 - 13th

spreadingthehealth.org

Street medics and wellness workers from Chicago and across the U.S. invite you to attend a conference -- *Spreading the Health* – to help build a grassroots health and wellness movement for social changes!

Healthcare workers and wellness workers provide critical support to direct action and social change movements – keeping people well so they can stay involved. From acting as street medics in large mobilizations to providing more continuous care at long-term encampments, such as Occupy, there is a growing movement of wellness work with a healing justice lens, a movement that includes healthcare professionals, community activists, alternative practitioners and others.

*Workshops and events from May 4th to May 13th*

*Location: First Lutheran Church of the Trinity in Bridgeport and other Chicago venues

Workshops Include:
- advanced first aid skills
- setting up
- running improvised clinics
- crisis management
- public health at long-term actions
- herbal medicine and acupressure
- radical mental health perspectives
- preventing and responding to mental health crisis, sexual assault and substance abuse
- healing burnout and managing stress and trauma.

This is conference is for:
- new and experienced street medics
- Community Based Organizations, Activists, organizers and healers of all modalities and all walks of life who wish to build skills and community around health and healing justice
- people with or without healthcare backgrounds interested in developing skills related to medical support, health and wellness care in social change work
- people who have stepped up to run medical support at Occupy actions across the country
- people who want to support the Chicago Spring / NATO protests actions

Come to the whole conference or select the workshops and events that
interest you.

Trainings offered will include:
- a complete 20-hour street medic training
- an 8-hour bridge training for healthcare professionals
- a first aid training for affinity groups

Check out spreadingthehealth.org for registration and updated information on workshop schedules, or to get involved.

This conference is being organized by health activists from Chicago Action Medical (Chicago’s collective of street medics), the Chicago Healing
Justice Network and street medic collectives throughout the country.

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Refocus the Frame: Turning the Lens on Race and Racism - May 10

The Facilitating Racial Equity Collaborative kicks off new Film & Discussion series on May 10!

Refocus the Frame: Turning the Lens on Race and Racism
A series of powerful film screenings followed by facilitated discussion, to stimulate insight and and thoughtful dialogue. The films will be free and open to the public. Popcorn and door prizes, too!

9500 Liberty documents the first time in U.S. history that an Arizona-style immigration law was actually implemented—and the surprising grassroots opposition that led to its repeal.
May 10, 2012, 7-9 pm (Doors open at 6:45)
Location: Intermedia Arts, 2822 Lyndale Ave. S. in Minneapolis

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The Great Republic of Rough and Ready at Union Hall - May 10

GRRR will perform at Union Hall to celebrate the release of a brand new (and gorgeous) record by their friends Racing Heart. This is a big venue and a big show conveniently located in Park Slope, so come listen to what they have to say, play some bocci upstairs, and enjoy. This might be your only chance to see GRRR perform this spring! It will be a memorable night.

THE GREAT REPUBLIC OF ROUGH AND READY
Union Hall
702 Union Street at 5th Avenue (Brooklyn)

8:00 pm The Great Republic of Rough and Ready
9:00 pm In One Wind
10:00 pm Racing Heart
Tell your friends: https://www.facebook.com/events/355184027850363/
Buy tickets in advance: http://www.ticketweb.com/t3/sale/SaleEventDetail?dispatch=loadSelectionData&eventId=4380325
$10 (tell them you're there to see GRRR)

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Apply to Volunteer in the 2012 Allied Media Conference Healing Justice Practice Space

We are still seeking volunteers to be "Space Keepers" for the Healing Justice Practice Space. Space keepers will manage the sign up sheet and maintain a safe space, support the healers in their practice, ensure access to the space for attendees, and help to troubleshoot other issues as they arise. They will also need to be able to answer questions about different healing modalities and other offerings of the space.

If you are interested, please fill out an application here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dFlpSm9aR0g3TmRKbk1lV1FER210Unc6MQ#gid=0

What is the Healing Justice Practice Space?

The Healing Justice Practice Space will provide individual and collective healing, with the goal of creating and sustaining an environment of wellness and safety for conference participants. The space will welcome the contributions of volunteers who are interested in or are practitioners of various medicine and healing arts, including (but not limited to): crisis counseling, herbalism, reiki, massage, acupuncture, yoga, energy and bodywork, dance/movement, art therapies, etc.

join my CSA to support racial justice! learn more here.

Hello Good People!

In this edition of Iambrown:

Medicine is Media! An Herbal Medicine Fundraiser for the 2012 AMC Healing Justice Practice Space (EVERYWHERE)
Basic Midwifery Skills Practicum - May 5-6 (NEW YORK CITY)
Spreading the Health Conference - May 4 - 13th (CHICAGO)
Refocus the Frame: Turning the Lens on Race and Racism - May 10 (MINNEAPOLIS)
The Great Republic of Rough and Ready at Union Hall - May 10 (NEW YORK CITY)
Apply to Volunteer in the 2012 Allied Media Conference Healing Justice Practice Space (DETROIT)

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Immune Builder Powder. A daily use powder to deeply strengthen your body’s defense mechanisms against everything that brings your immune system down, including : viruses & bacteria, emotional, physical and environmental stressors.
Vitamin C Powder. Like Emergen-C without the fizz, this delicious powder supplies your body with apower punch of immune boosting vitamin C.
Immunity Enricher. Made with yellow dock, molasses, and nettle, this powder is packed with iron, potassium, calcium and other nourishing vitamins and minerals your body needs to maintain a hard-working immune system.

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Spreading the Health Conference - May 4 - 13th

spreadingthehealth.org

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Refocus the Frame: Turning the Lens on Race and Racism - May 10

The Facilitating Racial Equity Collaborative kicks off new Film & Discussion series on May 10!

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The Great Republic of Rough and Ready at Union Hall - May 10

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Apply to Volunteer in the 2012 Allied Media Conference Healing Justice Practice Space

If you are interested, please fill out an application here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dFlpSm9aR0g3TmRKbk1lV1FER210Unc6MQ#gid=0

What is the Healing Justice Practice Space?

4/22/12 4/22/12

April News - Immune Power!

Hello Good People!

As many of you already know, I am a devoted member of the Allied Media Conference organizing community. This year I have the privilege, honor, and delight to once again be organizing the Healing Justice Practice Space at the 2012 Allied Media Conference (in Detroit June 28-July 2, Check. It. Out.) If you haven't been to the AMC, you may have heard that it's a space where we come together to share tools and tactics for transforming our communities through media-based organizing. Pretty hip. If you have been to the AMC, you know that it is one of the most transformative, diverse, and inspiring national gatherings that exists. The incredible work I witness and learn from at the AMC fuels my work through the rest of the year.

The Healing Justice Practice Space at the AMC brings together health care practitioners and healers from all over the country to offer their health and wellness services in a shared, integrative health care space. It is also a gathering point for those of us who are building community projects and accessible spaces for health and wellness, those of us who are strategically bringing health and healing into the social justice movement - a place for us to share our resources and wisdom, to gain new tools and skills from one another, to sit in awe of the incredible work we are advancing in spite of the massive weight of the medical, prison, and military industrial complex. Wow, we rock!

So how do we get all of these dope healers in one place? That's where you come in (I hope)! We are running the world's sexiest fundraiser, and we fully expect you to be so seduced by how awesome it is that you cannot help but donate money. The Good Fight Herb Company has created handcrafted Immune Power Powders, dissoluble herbal medicines that build on the strength of your own immune system to help you fight illness in all it's many forms. If you make a donation of $40 or more to the Healing Justice Practice Space, you receive one of these beautiful handmade gift packs in the mail. All proceeds from this fundraiser go directly to travel scholarships for healers. We plan to raise over $1000, with your help! Make your way to Allied Media's AMPStore to get yours: https://store.alliedmedia.org/amc2012-immunity-boost

There are only 29 left, so definitely order yours ASAP. Of course, you can make a donation to the practice space at any time. All funds go directly to travel scholarships for healers who are driving, flying, busing, and beaming their way to the conference; and to buying supplies for their incredible healing work. For more on the fundraiser, the Healing Practice Space, and some other things that I think are great, read on below.

Be well-Autumn

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Medicine is Media! An Herbal Medicine Fundraiser for the 2012 AMC Healing Justice Practice Space

Support Healers Traveling to the 2012 AMC by purchasing Immune Power Powders! For an exciting limited time only, donate $40 or more and receive a unique, handmade “Immune Power Powder” Gift Pack from Good Fight Herb Co. There are only 30 gift packs available, so order yours now! Your donation will directly support travel scholarships for healers and health practitioners who are attending the 2012 Allied Media Conference to offer their gifts and services in the Healing Justice Practice Space (more on the Practice Space below).

The Immune Power Powders Gift Pack includes 3 custom crafted medicinal formulas packaged in beautiful glass corked vials complete with instructions and containing about 20 servings each. The Immune Power Powders Contain :

Immune Builder Powder. A daily use powder to deeply strengthen your body’s defense mechanisms against everything that brings your immune system down, including : viruses & bacteria, emotional, physical and environmental stressors.
Vitamin C Powder. Like Emergen-C without the fizz, this delicious powder supplies your body with apower punch of immune boosting vitamin C.
Immunity Enricher. Made with yellow dock, molasses, and nettle, this powder is packed with iron, potassium, calcium and other nourishing vitamins and minerals your body needs to maintain a hard-working immune system.

Donation details: To make your donation and receive one of these unique, handmade medicinal gift packs, visit https://store.alliedmedia.org/amc2012-immunity-boost. Shipping is included in the price of the package. Additional donations are welcome and appreciated. You can make a donation of any amount to the Practice Space, but only a donation of $40 or more will earn you an Immune Powder Power Pack!

What is the Healing Justice Practice Space?
The Healing Justice Practice Space is an all-gender, all-bodied, inclusive and accessible space for practicing and receiving healing. We will offer the AMC community massage therapy, energy work, community acupuncture, herbal therapy, counseling, first aid, art therapy, dance, yoga, and more! The HJPS will also provide skill-sharing, creative documentation of our process, and 101 workshops on health and healing justice and its intersections with media-based organizing. Together we will build an in-house and online Resource Center to hold the incredible wealth of information and strategies developed by fierce healers and activists around the country. Our work uplifts and politicizes the role of health and healing in our movements as a critical part of the world we are building. We recognize that medicine is media, that how we heal ourselves is directly related to how we engage in individual and collective transformation.

For more information about this fundraiser, contact Autumn Brown: autumnmeghan@gmail.com

Information about the medicine maker, Lauren Giambrone: http://goodfightherbco.com/?page_id=2.
Good Fight Herb Co: http://www.goodfightherbco.com/

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Climbing Poetree National Tour

Last week I was once again blessed to watch Alixa and Naima, the two magical beings who comprise Climbing Poetree, perform at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN. They just finished the first half of their national tour, and having concluded their West Coast leg, they have been working their way across the midwest, and are heading back east. Upcoming tour dates are bringing them to the 10th Annual Terry Plunkett Maine Poetry Festival at the University of Maine, the Brooklyn Children's Museum in New York City, Smith College, Emmanuel College, Providence College, and many other spots up and down the east coast. Go to climbingpoetree.com for a complete tour schedule and please make it a priority to see them live. Rarely is it possible to see such breathtaking, original, inspiring, and challenging artistry at work.

Hello Good People!

Be well-Autumn

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Medicine is Media! An Herbal Medicine Fundraiser for the 2012 AMC Healing Justice Practice Space

Immune Builder Powder. A daily use powder to deeply strengthen your body’s defense mechanisms against everything that brings your immune system down, including : viruses & bacteria, emotional, physical and environmental stressors.
Vitamin C Powder. Like Emergen-C without the fizz, this delicious powder supplies your body with apower punch of immune boosting vitamin C.
Immunity Enricher. Made with yellow dock, molasses, and nettle, this powder is packed with iron, potassium, calcium and other nourishing vitamins and minerals your body needs to maintain a hard-working immune system.

For more information about this fundraiser, contact Autumn Brown: autumnmeghan@gmail.com

Information about the medicine maker, Lauren Giambrone: http://goodfightherbco.com/?page_id=2.
Good Fight Herb Co: http://www.goodfightherbco.com/

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Climbing Poetree National Tour

3/1/12 3/1/12

March 2012 - Brilliance Remastered!

Hello Good People!

This month's Iambrown is full of so many incredible performances, trainings, books, speakers, and services (Academics, check out the first item!) that I really could not justify including an essay. Also, I might have broken my finger falling on ice this morning. Sad, but hey, it's finally winter in Minnesota. Without further ado...

In this Edition of Iambrown:

Announcing Brilliance Remastered!!
Invincible, Jean Grae, and Tamar Kali Perform at Columbia University (New York City)
"Our Only Weapon Our Spirit: Selected Prison Writings of Bobby Sands" Reading (Saint Paul, MN)
Dr. Tererai Trent gives the Women's Month Keynote at the College of Saint Benedict's (St. Joseph, MN)
Movement Building: From Treaties to Prosperity (Minneapolis, MN)
Art in Healthcare for Rural Communities Workshop (Sioux Falls, South Dakota)
Taller Para Talleristas / Training for Trainers (Minneapolis, MN)
SmartMeme is Hiring! (Boston, MA and San Francisco, CA)
New Book - The People's Pension: The Struggle to Defend Social Security Since Reagan (Everywhere)
Decolonization Begins at Birth: Hospital, Birthing Centers, and Homebirth Stories (Everywhere)

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Announcing Brilliance Remastered

Brilliance Remastered is the new practice of visionary academic and organizer Alexis Pauline Gumbs, PhD. It is a service for visionary under-represented graduate students and emerging community accountable scholars! Here is what Alexis has to say about her practice:

"Brilliance Remastered is my contribution to shifting the paradigm of what we do as community accountable scholars. It is my intention that your experience of graduate school is not full of paranoia, proving yourself, being misunderstood and overlooked, but rather of radiant and inspiring opportunities to bring your best intellectual resources to the issues and communities you care about. I also intend that when you finish graduate school you are not grabbing for crumbs based on what academic institution wants to hire and tokenize and overwork an under-represented person with your specialties, but rather that you will be able to choose to continue your passionate inquiry on your own terms in ways that prioritize and support strategies of power for the communities you love."

Offering one-on-one coaching, PhDoula support, and much more! Sign up for her first Audre Lorde inspired webinar Remastered Tools 101 by today, March 1st! May the transformative lovefest BEGIN!!!! ♥♥♥♥

http://www.alexispauline.com/brillianceremastered/

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Invincible, Jean Grae, and Tamar Kali Perform at Columbia University

Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, in conjunction with:
Lucha
Columbia ISO
B.S.O.
Radical C.U.N.T.S.
Freedom School
Asian American Alliance
S.E.E.J.
M.S.A.
C.U.S.H.

Presents an epic concert featuring INVINCIBLE, JEAN GRAE, AND TAMAR KALI as part of the Born in Flames Tour and Israeli Apartheid Week!
Friday, March 2nd

Roone Arledge Auditorium
Lerner Hall
New York, NY 10027
Doors open at 8:30, concert starts at 9.

Tickets are on sale now! Capacity is limited, so be sure to reserve your place right away.
You can purchase tickets at the following link:
https://www.ovationtix.com/trs/pe/9657037

Ticket price:
$7 for Columbia students
$15 for non-Columbia students

About Born in Flames:
The Born in Flames Tour bridges the worlds of hip hop and rock, and spotlights women who represent the best of both worlds, bringing together two crucibles of creativity—Brooklyn and Detroit. Featured artists Invincible, Tamar-kali, and Jean Grae are all highly-respected in their individual scenes, and their ever-growing fan bases will continue to elevate them into cult status well into the future. The name of the tour, Born in Flames, speaks to the pressure these artists feel from from a world that’s often at odds with their very existence, be it black/woman/queer/punk, etc.

The Born in Flames tour aims to affirm that outsider artists can win in the music industry by putting on powerful, original, and authentic live show that attracts new fans, night after night. Through this multi-genre tour, fans of Invincible and Jean Grae will be moved by Tamar-kali's hard rock spirit and, in turn, Tamar-kali's fans will be reminded of the power of real hip-hop. Each artist will leave an indelible mark on every stage they set ablaze.

Learn more about the tour at http://borninflamestour.com/

February 27-March 3 is Israeli Apartheid Week in NYC!
For more information, visit: http://newyork.apartheidweek.org/
GET INVOLVED & organize events in your respective city...learn more!http://apartheidweek.org/en

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Readings from "Our Only Weapon Our Spirit: Selected Prison Writings of Bobby Sands"

Micawber's Books

2238 Carter Ave
Saint Paul, MN
Friday, March 16, 2012
7:00pm until 10:00pm

Help us celebrate St. Patrick's Day with a talk on one the great IRA legends and his legacy. Book editor Samuel Conway will be here to discuss the book.

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Dr. Tererai Trent gives the Women's Month Keynote at the College of Saint Benedict's

March 21st, 2012

7pm

Gorecki 204

Saint Benedict's College

37 South College Avenue
St. Joseph, Minnesota 56374

Dr. Tererai Trent grew up in rural Zimbabwe where she was denied education because she was a girl. She persevered and overcame adversity to reach her dreams. She now helps girls in Southern Africa do the same.

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Movement Building: From Treaties to Prosperity

Tuesday

March 20, 2012
5:30-7:30 p.m.

For the month of March, the Headwaters Foundation series "Movement Building" is relocating to the All My Relations Gallery, bringing the Why Treaties Matter exhibit into our conversation about Native American sovereignty. The exhibit provides an important backdrop for talking about contemporary community and sustainability with guest speaker Justin Hueneman, Executive Director of the Native American Community Development Institute(NACDI). NACDI is advancing the concept of sovereignty in an urban context. Justin will share the story of how the local community is successfully building and redefining itself, first with a vision of what it "has" and from there creating a plan to secure what it needs.

5:30 p.m. reception and time to view the exhibit
6:30 p.m. program

All My Relations Gallery
1414 East Franklin Ave
Minneapolis

Our mission --our passion-- is to be a catalyst for social, racial, economic, and environmental justice. Our role is right in the middle, between the big picture and the small details, making sure grassroots organizing is funded well, connecting those with means with those on the front lines of change, and working with grassroots organizations so their roots reach even deeper and wider. And we'd like you to join us.

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Art in Healthcare for Rural Communities Workshop

April 16-17th, 2012

A training program for individuals interested in developing and participating in arts in healthcare initiatives in rural communities.

This training will provide participants with the skills and tools necessary for creating sustainable arts in healthcare initiatives in rural communities. Emphasis will be placed on topics related to cultural competency, funding, partnerships, program development and management, artist training, and program assessment.

The two-day workshop is for anyone--administrators, artists, physicians, and nurses--who want to learn how to help people in rural communities improve their health through the arts. The workshop is Monday, April 16 from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. to Tuesday, April 17 from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The program will be held in the Dakota Room at Sanford Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Cost for the program is $35.00.

Sponsored by Sanford Health, University of South Dakota, University of South Dakota School of Medicine, the State of Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, the Arts in Medicine Programs at the University of Florida, and the Kresge Foundation.

For more information contact Patrick McGowan
Director, Sanford Clinic Ear, Nose,Throat & Audiology
Sanford Arts in Health & Healing:

Direct phone: 605.328.8232
Email: patrick.mcgowan@sanfordhealth.org
Website: www.sanfordhealth.org

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TALLER PARA TALLERISTAS/TRAINING FOR TRAINERS

Usted está invitado!/Announcement! You're Invited!

Únase e inscríbase en este taller intensivo diseñado para facilitadores y facilitadoras con experiencia que buscan revitalizar su trabajo, para talleristas principantes que buscan inspirarse, profesores y profesoras, líderes en la comunidad, activistas y cualquier persona que quiera llevar sus capacidades al siguiente nivel y aprender cómo pueden liderarse talleres de una manera más efectiva

Dónde: Waite House (en su nueva ubicación!). 2323 S. 11th Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55404

Cuándo: Viernes, 30 de marzo, 6 a 9 ó 10pm. Cena incluidos, Sábado, 31 de marzo, 8am a 6pm. Desayunoy almuerzo incluidos, Domingo, 01 de abril, 8 am a 6pm. Desayuno, almuerzo y pasabocas incluidos.

Que: Desde 1992, Training for Change/Talleristas por la Justicia ha venido aumentando su capacidad de hacer entrenamientos para activistas alrededor del mundo. Cuando decimos entrenamiento para activistas, nos referimos a aquel que ayuda a los grupos a trabajar más efectivamente por la justicia, la paz y el medio ambiente.

¿Por qué:

Tener habilidades para dar entrenamientos y facilitar talleres es fundamental para realizar organización comunitaria y construir movimientos sociales de forma efectiva. Las personas que cuentan con dichas habilidades están en capacidad de prestar apoyo a los grupos con los que trabajan al capacitar nuevos/as líderes, transferir conocimiento y habilidades entre generaciones, fortalecer la participación al interior de dichos grupos, introducir conceptos nuevos y transformadores, educar e involucrar a sus audiencias, prestar apoyo en reuniones y procesos de toma de decisiones, resolver conflictos y realizar entrenamientos para la toma de acciones exitosas, creativas y disciplinadas.

¿QUIÉNES DEBEN PARTICIPAR?

Personas que se desempeñen como facilitadoras, consultoras o talleristas con diferentes niveles de experiencia... activistas y organizadores/as comunitarios/as que deseen desarrollar capacitaciones más efectivas en su trabajo... profesores y profesoras, líderes de la comunidad, pastores/as, consultores/as y otras personas que deseen obtener más herramientas experienciales. El Taller para Talleristas es una excelente forma de empezar a conocer el estilo de entrenamiento de la organización Talleristas por la Justicia -TPJ- (en inglés, Training for Change) en caso de que esté considerando la posibilidad de que TPJ trabaje más cercanamente con su organización o que planee asistir a otros talleres que ofrecemos.

OBJETIVOS DEL TALLER

●     Mejorar las habilidades para facilitar y diseñar talleres

●     Aumentar el número de herramientas que puede usar efectivamente en sus talleres

●     Ganar una mayor conciencia sobre sus propias capacidades como facilitador o facilitadora

INFORMACIÓN LOGÍSTICA

El taller inicia con una cena e inscripciones a las 6pm el viernes y finaliza a las 6pm del domingo.

El horario para cada día del taller es el siguiente:

Viernes: 6 a 9 ó 10pm. Cena incluida

Sábado: 8am a 6pm. Desayuno  y almuerzo incluidos

Domingo: 8 am a 6pm. Desayuno, almuerzo y pasabocas incluidos.

Aunque se trata de un horario extendido, hemos encontrado que nuestro estilo experiencial mantiene a las personas involucradas, alertas y energizadas durante todo el fin de semana. Así mismo, programamos descansos cortos y largos y animamos a quienes participan a que se cuiden para que puedan estar completamente presentes en el taller. Por favor contáctenos si tiene preguntas sobre el horario del taller.

El taller está diseñado como un paquete experiencial y cada sesión se construye sobre la anterior; queremos crear el mejor ambiente de aprendizaje posible para que los y las participantes absorban el aprendizaje combinado de cada sesión. Por ello, NO PERMITIMOS LA ASISTENCIA PARCIAL, por lo que quienes se inscriban deben comprometerse a asistir al taller en su totalidad.

Los elementos centrales de este taller ayudan a los y las participantes a fortalecer sus habilidades en diferentes áreas, que incluyen: crear un espacio seguro y generar cohesión para que un grupo pueda hacer el mejor trabajo posible de forma conjunta, utilizar actividades experienciales para extraer la sabiduría del grupo y guiar su aprendizaje, trabajar con la diversidad existente dentro del grupo y aplicar los principios de diseño que permiten realizar talleres más sólidos.

A lo largo del taller habrá múltiples oportunidades para discutir preguntas o retos específicos que desee explorar en este espacio. El Taller para Talleristas es un taller divertido y a la vez riguroso y en tanto sus participantes empujan sus propios límites para ser mejores liderando talleres, puede que surjan emociones fuertes. Hacemos lo mejor para prestarle apoyo para que usted se cuide en el taller y obtenga el mayor aprendizaje posible de los momentos que puedan ser un reto.

INSCRIPCIONES

Para inscribirse, por favor envíe un correo electrónico a Celia Kutz - celia@trainingforchange.org o comuníquese a los siguientes teléfonos: En inglés: Celia -             612-721-8607 y en español: Andrew - 202-277-5262. El cupo máximo es de 20 personas y la fecha límite para inscribirse es el 10 de marzo de 2012.

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SmartMeme is HIRING!

SmartMeme is announcing two new full time positions, and we need your help finding the greatest applicants to join our staff.

We're looking for applicants experienced with grassroots organizing, strategic communications, movement strategy, creative actions and social justice work in diverse multiracial, cross-sector movements. We want creative, bold, imaginative applicants; team players with the ability to manage stress and find the opportunity in the crisis; hard workers with excellent time management skills who deliver high quality results on tight timelines; and people with a demonstrated commitment to fundamental social change. The positions could be based out of either our two national offices in SF or Boston.

1. Our new  operations person is a highly competent, can-do kind of person who will be the glue that holds smartMeme's work together—whether it's setting up field registration at a mobilization, maintaining our organizational database or negotiating a better deal with our landlord. The smartMeme Operations Manager position is for a problem solver who gets deep satisfaction from attention to detail. We need an implementer who can take emergent visionary ideas and transform them into reality.

2. Our new Training Program Coordinator will need to be a skilled trainer, facilitator and strategist who is also experienced with strategic communications. We need someone seasoned in the dynamics of organizing and movement strategy, who also understands the power of framing and stories. We’re looking for a narrative thinker who is great at creating effective messages, pithy slogans, and killer memes. In short we need an experienced, high capacity, well- rounded, social change superstar to lead our national Training Program.

Could either of these be you or someone you know?  Help us spread the word and build thesmartMeme team!

SmartMeme is an equal opportunity employer committed to identifying and developing the skills and leadership of peoplefrom diverse backgrounds and challenging historic patterns of political marginalization and oppression. People of Color, working-class people, differently-abled people and LGBT persons are strongly encouraged to apply.

Please CLICK HERE to see our website for additional information and to apply.

In solidarity,

doyle canning, patrick reinsborough, the smartMeme board and entire team

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New Book - The People's Pension: The Struggle to Defend Social Security Since Reagan

Eric Laursen's book, "The People's Pension: The Struggle to Defend Social Security Since Reagan," will be available late this month. Amazon.com now has a page, and is accepting pre-orders.http://www.amazon.com/Peoples-Pension-Struggle-Defend-Security/dp/1849351015

"The People's Pension" traces the story of the 30-year war to determine the fate of America's most successful social program, analyzes the arguments over its future, and suggests what's needed to preserve and expand the principles behind it for the 21st Century. In many ways the defining American domestic political struggle of our time, the story of the Social Security wars is here being told in full for the first time.

Eric will be touring to support "The People's Pension," and news on his blog, http://peoplespension.infoshop.org/blogs-mu/, along with his usual contributions on social insurance in general and Social Security in particular.

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Decolonization Begins at Birth: Hospital, Birthing Centers, and Homebirth Stories
by Yaocihuatzin, Ph.D.

Birth and Postpartum Doula
203-360-8039;yao.doula@gmail.com

Rationale
Due to the need of the documentation of birth stories from all women, including minority and/or immigrant women, and the voice of midwife and doulas, I propose a book about hospital and homebirth stories from the perspective of the midwife, doula, and mother. If fathers want to write about the birth experience as a result of supporting and witnessing their wife's birth, they are welcome as well. All birth stories will be accepted regardless of the outcome. For example, still born birth stories.

This book will consists of seven chapters; it will be both in English and Spanish. Chapter one states the introduction and significance of the book. Chapter two consists of the research literature related to this book. Chapter three explains midwife experiences. Chapter four explains doula experiences. In chapter five are the hospital birth stories from women and men all throughout the United States, they will write about giving birth for as many children as they have for each birth story is unique. Chapter six presents birthing center stories from women and men all throughout the United States. Chapter seven presents the home birth stories from women all throughout the United States as well. Chapters five, six, and seven may include father’s birth experiences if they want to share. Chapter eight concludes with recommendations and suggestions for future research.

The book will present detailed birth experiences from women of a variety of ages, income, and race. If you are interested in submitting the birth story of your child or children please email your birth story to yao.doula@gmail.com by the deadline: March 31, 2012. Also, if you are a midwife or doula and want to submit any birth experiences please do so as well. There is no limit to the number of words for your midwife, doula, and hospital, birth center, or home birth story, but please be as detailed as possible. Men, please share the birth story from your perspective as well. Following are some questions to guide your birth story:


1.     Date of birth
2.     Location of birth
3.     Length of birth
4.     Did you give birth naturally or had a cesarean section? Why?
5.     How was your husband or companion supportive?
6.     Explain the experience with your midwife, doctor and/or doula.
7.     Share any difficult experiences with hospitals or individuals.
8.     Was your birth followed as in your birth plan or what last minute changes occurred?
9.     Did you have an amniocentesis?
10.  Did you have an epidural, episiotomy, or any narcotics? If yes, were they positive or negative experiences?
11.  Were you induced and what were the reasons?

12. If you did not use any narcotics or epidural, how did you cope with the birth waves, (contractions) birth, (labor) or "pain"?
13. Were your waters broken for you or did they release on their own?

14.  Were you allowed to keep your placenta? What did you do with your placenta?
15.  What did you do with the umbilical cord when it fell off?
16.  Did the hospital take your baby away from your or did you hold your baby immediately after he/she was born?
17.  Did you circumcise your baby? Why or why not?
18.  Did you vaccinate your baby? Why or why not?
19.  Are you breastfeeding? Why or why not?
20.  What did you do after your baby was born? For example: welcoming ceremony, party, etc.

As for the midwives and doulas, please submit any birth stories you assisted over the years. Following is a guide but please be creative and write from your heart.
1. How many births have you attended?
2. How long have you been a midwife or doula?
3. You can focus on a few births or write about your experiences in general.
4. What is it like to work as a midwife or doula in the current birthing system?
5. Are there any tests or procedures that you disagree with but have to adhere to because of the nature of the current system?

Production
The first draft of the manuscript will be completed by August 2012 and could be delivered to the press by September 2012 if the women edit their first draft in time.

Lastly, if you have any suggestions for Potential Reviewers please list their name at the end of your birth story and label it, “potential review” with the person’s contact information.

I hope to get your midwife, doula and/or hospital or home birth story. For further questions, please email me at yao.doula@gmail.com.

With Best Wishes,

Yaocihuatzin, PhD
Birth and Postpartum Doula
203.360.8039

Hello Good People!

In this Edition of Iambrown:

Announcing Brilliance Remastered!!
Invincible, Jean Grae, and Tamar Kali Perform at Columbia University (New York City)
"Our Only Weapon Our Spirit: Selected Prison Writings of Bobby Sands" Reading (Saint Paul, MN)
Dr. Tererai Trent gives the Women's Month Keynote at the College of Saint Benedict's (St. Joseph, MN)
Movement Building: From Treaties to Prosperity (Minneapolis, MN)
Art in Healthcare for Rural Communities Workshop (Sioux Falls, South Dakota)
Taller Para Talleristas / Training for Trainers (Minneapolis, MN)
SmartMeme is Hiring! (Boston, MA and San Francisco, CA)
New Book - The People's Pension: The Struggle to Defend Social Security Since Reagan (Everywhere)
Decolonization Begins at Birth: Hospital, Birthing Centers, and Homebirth Stories (Everywhere)

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Announcing Brilliance Remastered

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Invincible, Jean Grae, and Tamar Kali Perform at Columbia University

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Readings from "Our Only Weapon Our Spirit: Selected Prison Writings of Bobby Sands"

Micawber's Books

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Dr. Tererai Trent gives the Women's Month Keynote at the College of Saint Benedict's

March 21st, 2012

7pm

Gorecki 204

Saint Benedict's College

37 South College Avenue
St. Joseph, Minnesota 56374

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Movement Building: From Treaties to Prosperity

Tuesday

March 20, 2012
5:30-7:30 p.m.

5:30 p.m. reception and time to view the exhibit
6:30 p.m. program

All My Relations Gallery
1414 East Franklin Ave
Minneapolis

Art in Healthcare for Rural Communities Workshop

April 16-17th, 2012

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TALLER PARA TALLERISTAS/TRAINING FOR TRAINERS

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Decolonization Begins at Birth: Hospital, Birthing Centers, and Homebirth Stories
by Yaocihuatzin, Ph.D.

Birth and Postpartum Doula
203-360-8039;yao.doula@gmail.com

12. If you did not use any narcotics or epidural, how did you cope with the birth waves, (contractions) birth, (labor) or "pain"?
13. Were your waters broken for you or did they release on their own?

2/2/12 2/2/12

February 2012 - A Rare and Intimate Love

Hello Good People!

I had the privilege last Friday night of hearing the great Cornell West speak at nearby St. Cloud State University. The experience was fulfilling in so many ways, not the least of which is that it was the first time since moving to St. Cloud where I entered a space where the vast majority of people in the room were also people of color. Wow! What an unexpected pleasure. I also had the unprecedented honor of being comp'ed by...Cornell West! Several of my friends had traveled up from Minneapolis to attend West's talk, but we all arrived to find that it was sold out. While standing around in the lobby trying to figure out if we could sneak in, one member of our group left to fill her water bottle. She returned with one of West's security guards, who escorted us into the auditorium. As it turns out, she ran into Mr. West in the hallway, and after lamenting the fact that she would not be able to hear him speak, he invited her to attend as his special guest! And she, in turn, requested that all of us be his special guests.

Cornell West's talk was framed as Race and Democracy in the age of Obama, but I felt that his true focus was on what it means to be a leader in this time of crisis. He repeated a powerful phrase throughout the hour as he stood, noteless, behind his podium: We need to learn how to die in order to learn how to live. He meant this literally - and shared a chilling story of how Martin Luther King, Jr. used to ask young activist leaders, "Do you have your cemetery clothes on?" MLK deeply understood the risk of leadership and resistance, until the day he gave his life in its service. Mr. West reminded us of a time when we understood “leaders” as those rare individuals who had an intimate love of the people, and were willing to die for the people.

But Mr. West also meant the phrase figuratively: that some part of us, the part that is "narcissistic and hedonistic and materialistic," had to die in order that we might live to pursue true justice. I found myself listing all the ways in which our culture needs to die in order that we might live: our desire and willingness to judge and condemn and alienate others based on the ways they are different from us. Our desire and willingness to horde our power and resources, to create scarcity where there should be abundance. Our desire and willingness to ignore the far-flung and long-term impacts of our insatiable appetite for consumption. These, and so many others that I long to name but cannot.

But in the days after his talk, I was also reminded that the dying and the living cannot happen alone. No one of us, no matter how magnanimous or inspiring, can manifest that new world by ourselves. We need to build communities and systems that stand outside of the normative relationships of exploitation, consumption, and detachment, while simultaneously not pretending that we ourselves can stand outside of those relationships. We must build the new world in the shell of the old, but not forget we are the ones who are building it, and that we are broken people just like that shell of a world is broken. If we are going to build that new world through shared leadership, we will have to learn to love and accept each other in our brokenness. That love will be shown in relationships of equity, transparency, honesty, and shared power.

During the Q&A after West's talk, a Black police chief got up and asked, "What can we do about the gross inequities in our treatment of convicted felons? How can we ensure that these individuals can re-enter society as full citizens?" Later, another Black man stood up and said, "I am on of those convicted felons the police chief spoke of, and since being released from prison I cannot get a job because no one wants to hire a felon. What should I do?" The police chief then called out across the auditorium, "Call me! I will help you!"

I burst into tears. I could feel the love in the midst of the brokenness.

In this Edition of Iambrown:

Interpreters Without Borders (New York)
SmartMeme 2012 Advanced Story-based Strategy Practitioner’s Training (National)
Friends for a Non-Violent World is Hiring - Alternatives to Violence Project Coordinator (Minnesota)
Offerings from the Facilitating Racial Equity Collaborative (Minnesota)
Call for Public Art in Minneapolis (Minnesota)
Birth Markings (Anywhere)
The Naked I: Wide Open (Minnesota)
Support The Coyote Way Film Project (Minnesota)
What Occupy Has Accomplished So Far (Everywhere)

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Interpreters Without Borders!

Please support Telesh Pascual Lopez , Karen Johana Lopez-Acero and Ana del Rocío in developing their skills to create an Interpreter and Translator Coop - Interpreters without Borders! Please donate today!

Your donations will help Telesh, Karen, and Ana to raise funds to complete a course with Green Worker Cooperatives' Coop Academy, a 16-week intensive training and support program for cooperative entrepreneurs. The Coop Academy is designed to provide teams of entrepreneurs with the training, coaching, and technical services that can dramatically increase their cooperative's chances for success and produce model worker-owned businesses.

Please share this announcement with folks who know the importance of language justice across communities.

Help raise $1,296 by Feb. 15, 2012!

Donate Here

https://ioby.org/project/interpreters-without-borders

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SmartMeme 2012 Advanced Story-based Strategy Practitioner’s Training:

Framing and Narrative Strategy for Social Change Strategists, Communicators and Organizers.

April 15-19^th 2012 Essex, MA

Are you a smartMeme training alum or a story-based practitioner that wants to expand your strategy toolbox? Learn how to reframe your issue? Join us!

The Advanced Training is designed as a full immersion 5 day, 4 night residential experience. This training aims to grow a powerful network of story-based strategy practitioners and leaders throughout the social & ecological justice movements. This advanced training is a one-of-a-kind leaning experience that delivers the best tools and thinking from the only national strategy center dedicated to amplifying the impact of grassroots organizing for social and ecological justice with the power of narrative and memes.

SmartMeme has trained over 4,000 activists since 2002 and collaborated and consulted with over 200 social change organizations to apply the story-based strategy framework to critical campaigns. The Advanced Training provides deeper exposure to smartMeme’s story-based strategy framework and training-of-trainers practicum elements. Participants will learn how to integrate narrative power analysis into their campaign work and get hands on experience facilitating story-based strategy exercises such as the Battle of the Story. Intensive team-based simulation sessions led by dynamic national campaigning organizations provide an opportunity to apply story-based strategy concepts to current issues and shared organizing challenges and to create narratives, memes, and point-of-assumption actions.

The Essex Retreat Center provides a beautiful and comfortable location on the coast just north of Boston. The multiday format, offers a chance to step out of the daily grind of campaigns and organizing in order to deepen skills, shift thinking and learn collectively with a community of highly skilled and motivated practitioners and organizers from leading groups from across the country and cutting-edge national alliances.

The Advanced Training for: Alumni of smartMeme trainings and workshops; organizers and communicators from organizations who have engaged with smartMeme; senior communications and campaign staff of social justice groups and alliances; seasoned facilitators, communicators and trainers that have a track record of supporting alliances in smartMeme's network. (All accepted applicants will receive a copy of Re:Imagining Change and be expected to both read this book and participate in a pre-training webinar tele-conference.)

This Advanced Training is: A intense boot-camp style residential training with a sophisticated learning community exclusively focused on smartMeme's story-based strategy methodology and model of narrative and campaign development for movement organizations and alliances.

What the Advanced Training is NOT: A media 101 training. A 101 organizing training. An anti-oppression training. A messaging consultation for your organization. An introduction to story-based strategy.

The full tuition for this advanced training is $1,500 and includes pre-retreat webinar, book, lodging, meals, ground transport, all advanced training materials and five days of intensive training. Partial scholarships are available. Please apply and we will follow up with you about supporting your fundraising efforts and/or supporting your tuition costs with scholarship solidarity funding, if you are accepted.

SmartMeme's 2012 Advanced Training is made possible with the generous support of the Akonadi Foundation, The Ben & Jerry's Foundation, The Levinson Foundation, The Solidago Foundation, the Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock, and donors like you. THANK YOU!

THE 2012 ADVANCED PRACTITIONER’S TRAINING will take place near Boston, MA at the beautiful Essex Conference Center and Retreat from April 15-19, 2012. Apply Now! Spots are very Limited! Questions? email training (at) smartmeme dot org...

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Friends for a Non-Violent World is Hiring - Alternatives to Violence Project Coordinator

Please forward/post far and wide, and include in your organizational bulletin or other newsletter if appropriate.

* We welcome resumes with a cover letter from all between today and Monday, February 6, 5:00 pm.
* FNVW will acknowledge receipt of the resume
* We will notify applicants by February 24th if they are invited for an interview

Please submit either electronically or by postal mail:
Electronic: Send to info@fnvw.org, attaching or pasting in your resume and cover letter
Postal mail:
AVP Hiring
Friends for a Non-Violent World
1050 Selby Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55104

JOB DESCRIPTION

Position Title:  AVP Coordinator
Reports To:     AVP Steering Committee and FNVW Managing Director
Type:               Part-Time / 12 hours, with the potential for hours increase
Salary:             The equivalent of $14/hour.
Benefits:          No health or dental; vacation & sick pay accrues.
Shift:               Hours vary daily depending upon need.

ORGANIZATION SUMMARY:
Friends for a Non-Violent World (FNVW) is a Quaker-inspired organization of people who share a commitment to advancing nonviolence as an ethic and strategy for achieving justice and peace.

FNVW’s programs are focused on providing nonviolence training and support to inmates in Minnesota’s correctional facilities and assisting in their successful re-entry to the community; on educating the public on the history, ethics and strategies of nonviolent personal and political action; and on organizing communities to generate and advance peaceful foreign and nonviolent national security policies, as well as to prevent – and end – our country’s wars.

National Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP-USA) has been training inmates and communities in nonviolence and conflict resolution for 37 years.  Through AVP, inmates have the opportunity to transform their means of survival from violence to nonviolence and come out of prison with spirit, heart and hands more integrated.  AVP-MN has done this work for 21 years.

POSITION SUMMARY:
Complete basic administrative tasks associated with AVP (in partnership with FNVW’s Administrative Manager); maintaining and publicizing the yearly workshop schedule; coordinating community and in-prison workshops; supporting and in some cases supervising AVP volunteers.

Maintain key relationships

Correctional Facility contacts
AVP-USA
AVP-MN Facilitators
Prospective community workshop participants
AVP governing board, the Steering Committee

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

High school diploma or equivalent required.
Commitment to nonviolence as a personal ethic and a force for social change.
Solid organizational and oral/written communication skills.
Ability to work with diverse ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic groups, including inmates, ex-offenders, and other marginalized communities.
Ability to manage projects independently and prioritize multiple tasks effectively.
Eagerness and ability to be proactive and to contribute to the team/consensus-based approach of the organization.
Strong computer skills and experience with Windows-based applications including Microsoft Word, Excel and Access (database).
Commitment to maintain confidentiality of sensitive materials and information.

PRIMARY DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES (to be prioritized with AVP SC):

Answer (or distribute as needed) voicemail, email, mail, and phones for AVP-MN
Communicate regularly with AVP detention facility coordinators, sharing schedule information, facilitator specifics, workshop participant lists, facility rules, etc.
Coordinate occasional workshop logistics, including stocking of supply box, registration and reminders, room set-up, refreshments/meals, clean up, thank you notes, arrangements for out-of-town participants, and return of all materials used, (such as prepared food pots and pans).
Create and/or distribute AVP promotional material when needed.
Create yearly schedule for AVP workshops.
Communicate with the AVP Steering Committee representative on FNVW’s board to help ensure that AVP is represented adequately at FNVW board meetings, and that AVP-related board meeting items are reported to the AVP Steering Committee each month.
Help plan and execute AVP events (i.e., gatherings and Spruce-Up sessions).
Maintain Stillwater inside facilitator lists, including dates and levels of previous facilitation, individual facilitator limitations, etc.
Help sign up facilitators for each AVP workshop.
Notify all registrants and facilitators when AVP workshops are cancelled.
Process AVP-related communications from inmates, distributing to appropriate parties or notify senders that communications from inmates cannot be forwarded to others.
Attend occasional Department of Corrections meetings.
Provide guidance to AVP volunteers on database entry requirements and expectations of various volunteer roles.
Promote and publicize AVP workshops when possible, in coordination with volunteer Outreach Committee.
Recruit participants for AVP community workshops when possible.
Send confirmation letter to detention facility or community partner two weeks prior to workshop.
Stay current on detention facility rules for facilitators, communicating changes and ensuring that facilitators meet every requirement of a given facility.
In coordination with Administrative Manager, update AVP database with contact information, release date, etc.

Please note: This list summarizes the coordination tasks and responsibilities needed for AVP-MN to thrive. To do all of these things in 12 hours a week is not realistic, so working with the AVP Steering Committee at monthly meetings to prioritize tasks is a central part of the job.

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Offerings from the Facilitating Racial Equity Collaborative

The White Racial Frame: Sharing Understandings
Join a guided book study: Reading together, reflecting together, applying what we come to understand – all are welcome to join in shared study of the important new contributions to antiracism thinking, Joe Feagin’s The White Racial Frame: Centuries of Racial Framing and Counter-Framing (2010).

We meet for ten sessions, discussing specific chapters each session with related exercises and videos. Your attendance at all ten sessions will both benefit you and provide continuity for the circle. However join for as many sessions as you are able.

Dates: Saturdays February 4, 11, 18 and 25; March 3, 17, 24 and 31; and April 14 and 21 (no gatherings on March 10 or April 7)
Times: 9:00 – 11:00 a.m. with breakfast at 8:30 a.m.
Location: 371 West Baker Street, St Paul MN 55107, on St Paul’s West Side

Cost: $10/session, includes all food and materials
Participants will need to purchase a copy of the Feagin 2010 text (approximately $30)
Obtain the text from a bookstore, Amazon, or ASDIC (see registration form)
Pre-registration requested, for sake of food and space preparations.

FFI: www.asdic-circle.org/events
or contact Margery at motto@asdic-circle.org
or Herbert Perkins at 651-224-2728

Offered by: ASDIC Metamorphosis, Antiracism Study-Dialogue Circles
Herbert Perkins and Margery Otto, co-facilitators
Presented with the Financial Support of: The Saint Paul Foundation
and the Antiracism Ministry Team of Cherokee Park United Church

Racial Justice Facilitation Training
Starting this year, trained racial justice facilitators will have the chance to expand their knowledge and skills at trainings year-round. In addition, the YWCA is now offering a Level 1 and Level 2 certification process for facilitators.

If you are interested in becoming a racial justice facilitator and leading conversations at community dialogues, YWCA workshops, and our annual It’s Time to Talk: Forums on Race event, please contact Sarah Super. Trainings start in February! You can apply online to be a racial justice facilitator.

The YWCA of Minneapolis provides many tools, resources, and trainings to make your vision for justice a reality. Learn how you can get more involved in our programs in our section of the YWCA of Minneapolis site.

Please email Sarah Super ssuper@ywca-minneapolis.org or call 612-215-4133 for more information. Download and share the flyer with others

The 2012 Multicultural Forum on Workplace Diversity
The 2012 Multicultural Forum on Workplace Diversity will be held on March 20-22, at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Produced in partnership with the Twin Cities Chapter of the National Black MBA, the Forum expects to attract over 1,000 attendees. Keynote speakers include Carol Evans, President of Working Mother Media and CEO of Diversity Best Practice, Steven Frost, Head of Diversity & Inclusion, London Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Ltd., and Sergio Rial, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Cargill, Inc.

OCB Forum Volunteers are now being recruited. Depending on your volunteer assignment you are able to attend sessions on the day you volunteer. Becoming a volunteer is a great way to experience this outstanding event firsthand and learn from some of the finest diversity and inclusion experts in the country.

To apply as a Forum Volunteer please go to: Volunteer link

To learn more about the 2012 Multicultural Forum go to: www.stthomas.edu/mcf

For questions, please contact Barbara Voorhees Blaha at bjvoorheesbl@stthomas.edu.

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Call for Minnesota Artists-5 Public artworks sought for South Minneapolis

The Corcoran Neighborhood Organization (CNO) seeks proposals for public art projects, each to be completed by an artist with adult and youth volunteers during the summer of 2012 in the Corcoran neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The purpose of the projects is to engage and involve residents of the neighborhood in public art creation and contribute to the livability of the neighborhood. The selected slate of projects will be presented as an arts participation program for neighborhood youth and families, and recruitment of volunteers will be the responsibility of CNO. The projects will produce permanent or semi-permanent artworks to be displayed in the public realm, i.e. highly visible locations in the neighborhood. Depending on location, projects may be subject to approval by the City of Minneapolis or another agency. In these cases CNO will play a lead role in seeking the necessary permits and approvals.

Interested artists are encouraged to learn more about CNO and the Corcoran neighborhood prior to submitting, by visiting the Corcoran Neighborhood Website.

WHO MAY APPLY?
All Minnesota artists are eligible to apply.

PROJECT LOCATIONS AND TYPES
Projects must be permanent or semi-permanent and appropriate for an outdoor placement. Strong proposals will demonstrate how the artist will involve 25 or more volunteers in the creation (installation and ideally also design) process.

Following are some types of projects and some locations that are possibilities. The strongest proposals will identify preferred installation location(s) and rationale. Applicants are encouraged to contact CNO to inquire about feasibility of location(s) you may be considering. Applicants may submit more than one project type and more than one possible location.

Lake Street / Midtown light rail transit station: utilize the steep landscape or the clear glass of the station in the installation, without permanently altering the station. Proposals will be subject to approval by Metro Transit.

Susan Hensel Gallery, 3441 Cedar Ave S, southern façade of building.

Yarn Bombing: to be installed on trees or utility boxes or other locations proposed by the artist and approved by the property owner.

Pavement Mural: one pavement mural design and installation project will be selected, to be installed on an intersection selected by CNO. Proposal for a pavement mural must include clear plans to involve volunteers in the design process. Proposals will be subject to approval by the City of Minneapolis.

Proposals for other locations or types of projects are welcome! Be sure to look at Corcoran 2011 murals to see the projects we completed in 2011 and earlier, as this may give you some ideas.

INSTALLATION DATE(S)

Installation of selected projects will take place on one Saturday or two successive Saturdays. In your application, please indicate which of the following dates are workable for you and whether you have any preferences. If your project involves design meetings to occur prior to installation, please explain. May 12, June 2, June 9, June 16, or June 23. Other Saturdays will also be considered.

REMUNERATION and SUPPLIES
Chosen artist(s) will be paid $30 per hour for up to 22 hours of work per project (Pavement mural project artist will paid $30 per hour for up to 42 hours of work). This is the maximum amount available for labor. Strong proposals will include a detailed budget or rationale demonstrating a realistic scope of the work (hours and materials) and project costs.

If latex paint or pavement paint is required, it will be furnished by the Valspar Foundation at no cost to the project budget. Other supplies are provided by a budget line item up to $450 per project.

PROPOSAL DUE DATE
March 15, 2012.

HOW TO APPLY Send proposals by e-mail to Eric Gustafson at eric@corcoranneighborhood.org. You will receive an e-mail confirming that we received your proposal.

Submit a one-page narrative (Word document or body of an e-mail) including:
o Description of each project and how you would organize it for implementation in close collaboration with 25+ volunteers of all ages. Describe your experience with similar public art or community projects and working with volunteers.
o Description and cost estimate of materials your project will require.
o Be sure to include your name, address, phone and e-mail contact information.
Submit as attachments 3-5 high quality images (JPG is preferred) of designs you would envision for this project and/or images of completed public projects you have worked on. You may propose more than one project. Selected artists will be expected to provide further information for promotional purposes.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT A jury of residents will meet in late March to review the proposals. If the jury is interested in your proposal, we will contact you to discuss further by phone or in person.
All applications will be notified by March 31.

MORE QUESTIONS?
E-mail is preferred. Eric Gustafson: eric@corcoranneighborhood.org - or - 612-724-7457

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Birth Markings

A new 19 minute documentary about how giving birth transforms our bodies. The film reframes and destabilizes the observer's reaction to the changes in a woman's body after she's given birth. The Film refocuses on the dynamism and lives experiences rather than the commodified image. Women talk with ambivalence, humor and love about the scars, marks and stretched skin that brands them as mothers. Priced at $120 (including $10 Shipping and Handling fees), the documentary is expensive, but that is because it includes public performance rights. You can screen it at an event or in class.

http://www.cambridgedocumentaryfilms.org/birthmarkings.htm

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The Naked I: Wide Open

Check out the world premiere of The Naked I: Wide Open, a play created by 20% Theatre Company Twin Cities, with the contributions of over 20 local transgender/gender non-conforming artists and allies. Most performances are sold out, so buy your tickets now!

http://www.tctwentypercent.org/season.html

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Support The Coyote Way Film Project

My friend Missy Whiteman is making a film called The Coyote Way, a modern day trickster story about a young coyote, his special bicycle, and how he learns his way in this walks fast world. Follow the link to donate to help the production team meet its $15,000 goal. Your support will further the careers of emerging Native American talent and movie production crew, as well as help to revitalize traditional stories and teachings though film and video.

http://givemn.razoo.com/story/Thecoyoteway

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What Occupy Has Accomplished So Far

This is a great catalogue of the ways the Occupy Movement is creating a culture shift locally, regionally, and nationally:

http://www.evolver.net/user/felicityoshannon/blog/what_occupy_has_accomplished_so_far

Hello Good People!

I burst into tears. I could feel the love in the midst of the brokenness.

In this Edition of Iambrown:

Interpreters Without Borders (New York)
SmartMeme 2012 Advanced Story-based Strategy Practitioner’s Training (National)
Friends for a Non-Violent World is Hiring - Alternatives to Violence Project Coordinator (Minnesota)
Offerings from the Facilitating Racial Equity Collaborative (Minnesota)
Call for Public Art in Minneapolis (Minnesota)
Birth Markings (Anywhere)
The Naked I: Wide Open (Minnesota)
Support The Coyote Way Film Project (Minnesota)
What Occupy Has Accomplished So Far (Everywhere)

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Interpreters Without Borders!

Please share this announcement with folks who know the importance of language justice across communities.

Help raise $1,296 by Feb. 15, 2012!

Donate Here

https://ioby.org/project/interpreters-without-borders

-----
SmartMeme 2012 Advanced Story-based Strategy Practitioner’s Training:

Framing and Narrative Strategy for Social Change Strategists, Communicators and Organizers.

April 15-19^th 2012 Essex, MA

Are you a smartMeme training alum or a story-based practitioner that wants to expand your strategy toolbox? Learn how to reframe your issue? Join us!

-----
Friends for a Non-Violent World is Hiring - Alternatives to Violence Project Coordinator

Correctional Facility contacts
AVP-USA
AVP-MN Facilitators
Prospective community workshop participants
AVP governing board, the Steering Committee

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

High school diploma or equivalent required.
Commitment to nonviolence as a personal ethic and a force for social change.
Solid organizational and oral/written communication skills.
Ability to work with diverse ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic groups, including inmates, ex-offenders, and other marginalized communities.
Ability to manage projects independently and prioritize multiple tasks effectively.
Eagerness and ability to be proactive and to contribute to the team/consensus-based approach of the organization.
Strong computer skills and experience with Windows-based applications including Microsoft Word, Excel and Access (database).
Commitment to maintain confidentiality of sensitive materials and information.

PRIMARY DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES (to be prioritized with AVP SC):

Answer (or distribute as needed) voicemail, email, mail, and phones for AVP-MN
Communicate regularly with AVP detention facility coordinators, sharing schedule information, facilitator specifics, workshop participant lists, facility rules, etc.
Coordinate occasional workshop logistics, including stocking of supply box, registration and reminders, room set-up, refreshments/meals, clean up, thank you notes, arrangements for out-of-town participants, and return of all materials used, (such as prepared food pots and pans).
Create and/or distribute AVP promotional material when needed.
Create yearly schedule for AVP workshops.
Communicate with the AVP Steering Committee representative on FNVW’s board to help ensure that AVP is represented adequately at FNVW board meetings, and that AVP-related board meeting items are reported to the AVP Steering Committee each month.
Help plan and execute AVP events (i.e., gatherings and Spruce-Up sessions).
Maintain Stillwater inside facilitator lists, including dates and levels of previous facilitation, individual facilitator limitations, etc.
Help sign up facilitators for each AVP workshop.
Notify all registrants and facilitators when AVP workshops are cancelled.
Process AVP-related communications from inmates, distributing to appropriate parties or notify senders that communications from inmates cannot be forwarded to others.
Attend occasional Department of Corrections meetings.
Provide guidance to AVP volunteers on database entry requirements and expectations of various volunteer roles.
Promote and publicize AVP workshops when possible, in coordination with volunteer Outreach Committee.
Recruit participants for AVP community workshops when possible.
Send confirmation letter to detention facility or community partner two weeks prior to workshop.
Stay current on detention facility rules for facilitators, communicating changes and ensuring that facilitators meet every requirement of a given facility.
In coordination with Administrative Manager, update AVP database with contact information, release date, etc.

-----

Offerings from the Facilitating Racial Equity Collaborative

-----

Call for Minnesota Artists-5 Public artworks sought for South Minneapolis

Interested artists are encouraged to learn more about CNO and the Corcoran neighborhood prior to submitting, by visiting the Corcoran Neighborhood Website.

WHO MAY APPLY?
All Minnesota artists are eligible to apply.

Susan Hensel Gallery, 3441 Cedar Ave S, southern façade of building.

Yarn Bombing: to be installed on trees or utility boxes or other locations proposed by the artist and approved by the property owner.

Proposals for other locations or types of projects are welcome! Be sure to look at Corcoran 2011 murals to see the projects we completed in 2011 and earlier, as this may give you some ideas.

INSTALLATION DATE(S)

PROPOSAL DUE DATE
March 15, 2012.

HOW TO APPLY Send proposals by e-mail to Eric Gustafson at eric@corcoranneighborhood.org. You will receive an e-mail confirming that we received your proposal.

MORE QUESTIONS?
E-mail is preferred. Eric Gustafson: eric@corcoranneighborhood.org - or - 612-724-7457

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Birth Markings

http://www.cambridgedocumentaryfilms.org/birthmarkings.htm

-----

The Naked I: Wide Open

http://www.tctwentypercent.org/season.html

-----

Support The Coyote Way Film Project

http://givemn.razoo.com/story/Thecoyoteway

-----

What Occupy Has Accomplished So Far

This is a great catalogue of the ways the Occupy Movement is creating a culture shift locally, regionally, and nationally:

http://www.evolver.net/user/felicityoshannon/blog/what_occupy_has_accomplished_so_far

1/3/12 1/3/12

January 2012 - The Other Story

Hello Good People!

A few weeks ago, I was listening to a radio program about the current Republican primary candidates. At one point a woman called in complaining that the candidates are not talking enough about welfare reform. She went on to say that she is a single mom working 60 hours a week to pay for a lifestyle her son's friends get for free, because in their households one or more parents aren't working, in some cases by choice. When I told my husband about this later, we had a good laugh about the idea that public assistance and welfare benefits pay for "lifestyle": as a family who has been on multiple kinds of welfare over the last 5 years, from Medicaid to Food Stamps to WIC, we couldn't help but wonder what we were missing out on...where were our IKEA benefits?

When I hear an average citizen make the mistake of conflating public benefits with "lifestyle" benefits, I recognize it as a dangerous ignorance arising out of having little or no contact with the welfare system or anyone who is in it. When a current or formerly elected official with experience working for the government says something like this, as Newt Gingrich did when he publicly claimed that some people were taking their food stamp money and going on vacation to Hawaii, I recognize this as a dangerous lie.

The political discourse in our media about welfare has skewed the national conversation such that many citizens actually believe that it is both easy to get benefits, and that you can use benefits any which way you want. The reality could not be more different. Getting into the welfare system requires intense levels of documentation (including but not limited to: social security cards for all adults applying, birth certificates for all children in the family, marriage licenses, utility bills, lease agreements, vehicle titles, proofs of income, bank statements for any accounts you hold, documentation of any daycare expenses, documentation of any school expenses, etc). Most public benefits offices are set up to screen people out of the system, rather than in, which means that any applicant must jump through a variety of hoops (including having their application and documentation "lost" and having to start the whole process over again), miss work or school to attend multiple appointments, and then wait a month or more from their application date for their benefits to kick in.

Once benefits are in hand, they can only be used in a specific way. For example, Food Stamp benefits (also known as food assistance, or SNAP) come in the form of an EBT (Electronic Benefits Transfer) card. It looks like a State ID card, and works like a debit card. The benefits on the card can only be used to buy food. An attempt to buy anything other than food - i.e., beer, cigarettes, or a plane ticket to Hawaii - will be rejected by the card. WIC (Women, Infants, and Children food assistance) is even more specific, because it comes in the form of a series of checks that are handed directly to the cashier. Each check outlines which items can be bought with it, and they come with an accompanying guide that outlines which brands of these items are approved and which are not. A Grocery shop with WIC checks can actually take twice as long as a normal shop because the items are so intensely regulated.

So, are frauds perpetrated within this system? Certainly. But in my experience of helping people negotiate these systems, the most frequent fraud perpetrated is this: NOT reporting all of the income a family earns. For example, people who are self-employed may choose to not report all of their income because they know that if they do, the result is being kicked out of the system. The reason these kinds of frauds are committed is very simple: Survival. The public benefits system is set up to take into account ONLY the most basic expenses a family will have - rent, utilities, school, and child care – in its evaluation of whether or not a family qualifies to receive benefits. The system does not take into account cost of living variations around the country, or a host of other expenses that the average family either requires or incurs: transportation to/from work/school/daycare; clothes and diapers; student loans and other kinds of debt repayment; phone and internet bills...these are all things that most citizens would agree are necessary for the average family to function in this country, and yet these expenses are not included in an evaluation of whether or not a family needs health or food support.

So if we can recognize that the kind of fraud that usually takes place is under-reporting of money earned, rather than the myth of using food stamps to pay for vacations, then we begin to paint a different story than the one repeated in the national media. This alternative story is that people ARE working, but are unable to report their income for fear of losing their benefits. And fear they should, for we live in an economy where people are penalized and made homeless for not being able to pay back their loans on time, and yet this aspect of our collective financial duress is left out of the process of evaluating whether or not people can afford food and health care. The notion that this system needs reforming in the direction of screening MORE people out of the system is just plain false. And dangerous.

However, I also do not want to come across as defending the notion that all adults should be working for an income and that there is something wrong with people "choosing not to work." I have noticed a transition in the national discourse about this question from when I was a kid. It used to be that we lamented the fact that in most two-parent households, both parents have to work. In the last decade, among conservatives and progressives, this has shifted to an expectation that both parents should work, and a criticism of those who "choose" not to work. There is an underlying assumption here that goes unquestioned and unexplored: that all of the other things we do in our homes and lives - things like cooking, cleaning, raising children, volunteering - are not work, and therefore have no value within our economy. We no longer recognize the value in a parent choosing to stay home with their children, because this is not considered "work." How bizarre. And this notion that both parents MUST work comes with an additional accompanying assumption that goes unquestioned and unexplored: that both parents are working for themselves and their children to have a particular lifestyle - a middle class lifestyle replete with multiple cars, phones, and other gadgets - which is inherently more valuable than the lifestyle they might otherwise have.

As a full-time mother who must also work somewhere in the range of part-time to full-time doing contract work in order to make ends meet, I recognize that public benefits have been critical to my family's ability to survive. I expect the government to take responsibility for citizens by redirecting resources in this way and I think it is one of the few things our government could do quite well if it had the right resources. I find it painful to realize that many political figures, when faced with a choice between providing these necessary benefits and allowing children to starve because their parents are not able to afford food, would choose to allow children to starve - even if their position is only rhetorical. The politicians who espouse these dangerous ideas are the same people who claim to uphold Christian values and to defend the family. The hypocrisy is painful to witness, especially because it allows non-elected citizens to feel comfortable and confident sitting in judgment of those who have less than them, from a place of unacknowledged privilege and unabashed indifference.

When we allow this dialectic to go unchallenged, we reinforce the stigma attached to receiving assistance that results in our country's public benefits being underutilized (in point of fact, close to half of all citizens who are eligible to receive food assistance never do). We also reinforce the notion that the only appropriate way for individuals and families to receive assistance is through religious charity, which is hugely problematic because these forms of assistance play out primarily within private institutions with few accountability protocols that protect those in need from being abused by those in the position to help them. We reinforce the idea that people in need are only deserving of what those in power are willing to give.

I would much rather put in place systems that reinforce the alternative idea: from each according to their ability, and to each according to their need. Systems where we all have enough to eat, and the health care we need, and a warm house to make a home. We can have fullness, wholeness, and wellness. And maybe go on vacation to Hawaii, too.

In this Edition of Iambrown:

Support Ciclovida: Life Cycle - A Delegation to Brazil in Service of Sustainability - January 4th
Announcing Three Opportunities to Apply for the Bush Fellowship Program in 2012
January Queer Country Monthly - January 28th

If you have trouble viewing this information in email format, please visit my website, www.iambrown.org.

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Support Ciclovida: Life Cycle - A Delegation to Brazil in Service of Sustainability - Wednesday, January 4th at 7pm

My friend Erick is traveling with 3 other Minnesotans to Brazil in service of sustainability through the organization Ciclovida: Life Cycle (find out more here:http://ciclovida.org/en/delegation). If you can, come out for their Send Off Party TOMORROW NIGHT in Minneapolis at the IATP Stevens Building (2104 Stevens Avenue, Minneapolis, MN). More details at http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10151083794685258

Join us for:
* music, food, and drinks
* a silent auction of great goods and services, including Chinook Books and an overnight experience at the Women's Environmental Institute at Amador Hill
* a short presentation of Line Break Media’s work so far
* a screening of the Ciclovida documentary (trailer: http://ciclovida.org/en/ciclovida-lifecycle)
* a chance for you, our community, to shape the goals and outcomes of our trip
* various other festivities (paddle ball? hoop and stick? floor hockey? indoor bocce ball? who knows!)
* Nolan's birthday!

Erick and his comrades are asking the community to consider helping them get to Brazil.

Can you commit to a financial contribution of $30, $300, $3000, or any amount that works for you to support our efforts?
Can you donate goods or services that can be sold or auctioned off to support this work?
Can you please share this invitation and appeal with your networks and anyone who might be interested?

Can’t make it to the fundraising party? Please contribute online through the ChipIn page at: http://bit.ly/v3XX1E. Any amount you are able to contribute is greatly appreciated!

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ANNOUNCING THREE OPPORTUNITIES TO APPLY FOR THE BUSH FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM IN 2012

The Bush Fellowship is an opportunity for individuals to increase their capacity for and improve their practice of leadership while working with others to solve tough problems in their communities. Read more about the fellowship and review the application process.

We've heard from previous Bush Fellowship Program applicants that they would like greater flexibility in when applications are accepted. In response, applicants will be able to submit before one of three application deadlines in 2012, with the first being noon (CST) on Friday, March 2. The application for this deadline will be available beginning Wednesday, January 4. Learn more about why we made this decision and a few other refinements to the application process.

Bush Fellowship Application Calendar

Application Period 1

Application Available: Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Reference Deadline: Friday, February 24, 2012

Application Deadline: Noon (CST), Friday, March 2, 2012

Bush Fellows Announced: June 2012

Required Start Date: August 1, 2012

Application Period 2

Application Available: Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Reference Deadline: Friday, April 27, 2012

Application Deadline: Noon (CST), Friday, May 4, 2012

Bush Fellows Announced: August 2012

Required Start Date: October 1, 2012

Application Period 3

Application Available: Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Reference Deadline: Friday, June 29, 2012

Application Deadline: Noon (CST), Monday, July 9, 2012

Bush Fellows Announced: October 2012

Required Start Date: January 1, 2013

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January Queer Country Monthly - January 28th

Saturday, January 28, 2012
8:00pm - 11:00pm

Branded Saloon
603 Vanderbilt Ave

Brooklyn, NY

Come see My Gay Banjo, Joshua Marcus and the Opry's own MC making her musical guest debut, Bryn Kelly. So head on down to the Branded Saloon for a whiskey milkshake and some of the finest country music this side of the Gowanus Canal. It's $5 (which all goes to support thebands), but no one turned away for lack of funds. Brought to you by Riot Grrrl Ink, the largest queer record label in the world. riotgrrrlink.com

More info:

My Gay Banjo
www.mygaybanjo.com

Joshua Marcus
www.joshuamarcus.com

Branded Saloon
www.brandedsaloon.com

In this Edition of Iambrown:

Support Ciclovida: Life Cycle - A Delegation to Brazil in Service of Sustainability - January 4th
Announcing Three Opportunities to Apply for the Bush Fellowship Program in 2012
January Queer Country Monthly - January 28th

If you have trouble viewing this information in email format, please visit my website, www.iambrown.org.

-----

Support Ciclovida: Life Cycle - A Delegation to Brazil in Service of Sustainability - Wednesday, January 4th at 7pm

Can you commit to a financial contribution of $30, $300, $3000, or any amount that works for you to support our efforts?
Can you donate goods or services that can be sold or auctioned off to support this work?
Can you please share this invitation and appeal with your networks and anyone who might be interested?

Can’t make it to the fundraising party? Please contribute online through the ChipIn page at: http://bit.ly/v3XX1E. Any amount you are able to contribute is greatly appreciated!

-----

ANNOUNCING THREE OPPORTUNITIES TO APPLY FOR THE BUSH FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM IN 2012

Bush Fellowship Application Calendar

Application Period 1

Application Available: Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Reference Deadline: Friday, February 24, 2012

Application Deadline: Noon (CST), Friday, March 2, 2012

Bush Fellows Announced: June 2012

Required Start Date: August 1, 2012

Application Period 2

Application Available: Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Reference Deadline: Friday, April 27, 2012

Application Deadline: Noon (CST), Friday, May 4, 2012

Bush Fellows Announced: August 2012

Required Start Date: October 1, 2012

Application Period 3

Application Available: Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Reference Deadline: Friday, June 29, 2012

Application Deadline: Noon (CST), Monday, July 9, 2012

Bush Fellows Announced: October 2012

Required Start Date: January 1, 2013

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January Queer Country Monthly - January 28th

Saturday, January 28, 2012
8:00pm - 11:00pm

Branded Saloon
603 Vanderbilt Ave

Brooklyn, NY

White Danger

Sheep, Shepherd, Wolf

Resilience is Our Birthrite

A Queer Love

The Gift of Grief

On Being Targeted

November 2015 News: Book Me in 2016!!

March 2015 News: Octavia's Brood

October 2014 News: Whole Access

July 2013 - Stay Solid! and Octavia's Brood

April 2013: Home is Here

September 2012 News - Labor is Meaningful Work

August 2012 - Such a Boy

July 2012 News - I've Been There

June News - Collective Healing from Collective Harm

May 2012 News - Deep Thoughts

April News - Immune Power!

March 2012 - Brilliance Remastered!

February 2012 - A Rare and Intimate Love

April 15-19^th 2012 Essex, MA

April 15-19^th 2012 Essex, MA

January 2012 - The Other Story

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April 15-19th 2012 Essex, MA

April 15-19th 2012 Essex, MA

April 15-19^th 2012 Essex, MA

April 15-19^th 2012 Essex, MA