Eden Bloom – Page 23

August 26, 2012November 9, 2022

Sweating It Out Together

From the Michigan Citizen column, 2012

This week, I’m honored to be writing from Albuquerque, New Mexico while attending the 13th annual White Privilege Conference. “The WPC is a conference that examines challenging concepts of privilege and oppression and offers solutions and team building strategies to work toward a more equitable world”. This year’s conference was extremely well attended by a diversity of peoples from all over North America and the world. My personal intention in attending is to continue to learn, study and reflect upon what it means to be a white male anti-racist/anti-oppression ally to the majority Black and People of Color communities, organizations and individuals that I share with in Detroit. I attended the conference with my partner, Angela Newsom, who serves as the program director for People’s Kitchen Detroit.

We haven’t left Detroit very often since we began sharing here six years ago, so rather than fly we decided to drive to Albuquerque with our three year-old. As we traveled across the country I reflected upon this weeks’ environmental justice principle. EJ principle #6 states that “Environmental Justice demands the cessation of the production of all toxins, hazardous wastes, and radioactive materials, and that all past and current producers be held strictly accountable to the people for detoxification and the containment at the point of production.” The extreme proliferation of environmental toxins that are rampant in our city, due to the collapse of the auto industry, the dishonorable departure of business and industry that left behind hazardous wastes, and the continued operation of the Detroit Incinerator and the catastrophic effects of toxic industries in and around zip code 48217.

The week before we left, local news reported the water department and hazardous materials crew was flushing the sewer system around the Detroit Medical Center due to what was most likely massive quantities of illegally dumped paint products. As the miles pealed away on our odometer, I reflected upon my own family’s exposure to toxins since we moved to Detroit in 2006. Last year, due to a cracked-opened “manhole” in the basement of a home we were renting in North Corktown/Briggs, we were slowly poisoned by sewage gas. Unaware, over a couple of months we found ourselves slowly become more and more sick. Thanks to a knowledgeable friend, we eventually discovered the leak, sealed it and began the process of detoxification.

Due to our destination being focused on privilege and oppression, as we drove, I thought upon our own privilege when confronted with the inescapable toxins we are exposed to daily and how other families in Detroit, who have been exposed over generations to hazardous materials by eating, breathing and living in the Arsenal of Democracy’s dumping ground must be effected. I also thought about the privilege of being able to leave Detroit for close to two weeks as we began to breathe easier in the noticeably fresh air outside of the city.

We began to breathe easier, sadly, until we reach the so-called heartland of US. As we traveled through increasingly rural areas, we began to pass by large industrial farms and started to see Monsanto signs everywhere. Monsanto is the world’s largest producer of genetically modified seeds and the chemicals farmers use to grow them. Being food justice activists, I admit that we may have been looking for these signs, but what we didn’t expect to see was just how prolific Montsanto is and how daunting it was passing by large chemical storage facilities and industrial spraying machines.

Dismayed and slightly depressed by the corporate domination of the landscape even here, we pulled into our first motel for the night. Exhausted and simply looking forward to rest, we entered our room and were immediately hit by the intense chemical smell of disinfectant and an over-the-top sickly-sweet scent that I can only assume was intended to cover up the disinfectant. Being too tired to load everything back into the car and find another, less toxic room, we laid our heads on pillowcases washed in chemical-laden industrial detergent. Waking with a massive headache, Angela’s first words in the morning were “we need to get out of here as soon as possible!”

I agreed and we got back on the road immediately. Passing by more industrial agricultural spraying equipment, I began to notice how “blown-out” the small towns we passed through were. Trying to find solace in the fact that these small town ruins somehow reminded me of home, it struck me that while our country’s urban areas are vilified due to their poor populations and environmental hazards, many rural areas seem to be in the same situation.

I returned to this week’s environmental principle and mourned over the immense and seemingly impossible idea of cessation of chemical production. While our privilege affords us the opportunity to attempt to reduce our family’s exposure to toxins and hazardous wastes, it appears that communities, not only in urban but rural areas as well, are under attack by companies like Monsanto, whose website lies that they are “meeting the needs of today while preserving the planet for tomorrow.”

With the US government’s strings being pulled by corporations, the idea of their being held accountable to people brings more frustration. The idea that these companies would implement detoxification or that they would be honest with us in any way seems nearly impossible. Our entire culture, oppressed and privileged, urban and rural alike, has become dependent upon the very products that are killing us. While corporations dominate the government, media, production and distribution of goods, from food to cleaning products, we are all threatened and literally under their control.

As my family and I enjoyed Albuquerque and learned and shared at the White Privilege Conference, Detroit’s city council was negotiating a loose/loose agreement with the State, the outcome of which will most likely be known by the time this prints. While I don’t want to be a naysayer and strongly support the efforts of those who labor to block it, this agreement and the push to put more of our resources, including our water and our children’s education, on the auction block for profit, often appears unstoppable. As I tuned into the local news and social media while away, my personal frustration over the impossibility of not only the cessation, accountability and detoxification from toxic and hazardous waste, but also from the corporate domination of our lives continued to grow.

Thankfully, this frustration shifted towards the end of the conference. Two days before our departure, we were extremely honored to share in a traditional community healing ceremony. This indigenous ceremony, called a Tezmacal, shares some common ground with a Native American sweat lodge. As Angela and I sat in the extreme heat and purged many of the toxins from our bodies I finally found some resolve to my frustration and a slight release from the overwhelming oppressive systems we are all connected to and co-implicated within.

As the community that gathered in the Tezmacal released their pain and anger through songs and screams that seemingly reverberated across and through our diverse generations of both privilege and oppression, I found solace in the fact that, while at the moment these massive systems and corporations would deny accountability, each of us can reframe our relationships so that we can grow an accountability to one another. Through singing, screaming and sweating out our pain, depression, anxiety, anger and loss… through the healing many of us already know we need, we can learn more about each other and, what’s more, we can overcome. As I back out of the small door of the Tezmacal, I suddenly looked forward to returning home, even in the face of the toxic politics and environment, to learn more, share more, sweat more and heal more.

– END-

May 23, 2012November 10, 2022

Bridging the gap between apathy and self-determination

Originally published in the Michigan Citizen, May 2012

Through this weekly column we’ve discussed the potential found in attempts to remove our personal and professional blinders by looking at the principles of digital, environmental, and food justice from different vantage points. It is telling that we’ve found real-world manifestations of the issues these justice principles speak to, both in Detroit’s current events and the history of our city.

This week, being mindful of this history of struggle and the current corporate-funded and media-enforced manipulation of Detroiters, the environmental principle on deck is rather daunting. EJ Principle #5 states; “Environmental Justice affirms the fundamental right to political, economic, cultural and environmental self-determination of all peoples.” That cuts right to the heart of it. From where I sit access to “self-determination” is exactly what is on the auction block in Detroit, that along with the community-owned resources that help to make up our “commons.”

Recently, I’ve been honored to participate in a series of intergenerational conversations around emergency management, potential bankruptcy and consent agreements. These conversations have been transformative for me as I’ve furthered my understanding of how disaster capitalism and institutionalized racism have fostered community-threatening levels of individualism and lack of accountability while propagating both mental and physical apathy and an increased reliance upon external systems. Addressing this apathy, this indifference to the world around us, has been a constant thread in our discussions. Why do so many people, Detroiters and folk across the state of Michigan, appear to be indifferent to or support such measures?

This question sent me into mediation on the nature of apathy itself. While perpetuating the same inability to effect meaningful change, apathy manifests differently for different people. While being a choice for some, apathy is a much less self-determined reality for others. A great disconnect occurs between those who can choose apathy, whether manifest as hipster irony, detached charity, or “tough times, tough measures” posturing, and those who can’t. Insult is added to injury due to the perception of a non-existent equal playing field. This normalizes apathy and somehow makes it acceptable.

One blatantly offensive and detrimental manifestation of the apathy can be found in the comments sections of the majority of online stories around emergency management. The argument runs that incompetence or poor choices justify ‘democracy-lite’ – a reduction in rights. Sadly, the targets of these comments are not just city officials, but also the people of Detroit as a whole. This incendiary ‘incompetence argument’ isn’t left to unencumbered online rhetoric. It is supported by well-organized replication in the media and has been used to justify the “blank slate/ruin porn” narrative and savior mentality that informs a great deal of interest and investment in the city.

While it would be ludicrous to deny the budget deficit or rampant corruption, I regard these things as symptoms and/or side effects of expedited and disrespectful economic divestments that plagued white-flight and unregulated capitalism hyped-up on a mega-dose of steroid-like corporate personhood. This is not intended as an apology for corruption. Leaders, elected officials and citizens alike should be held accountable through respectable means in good times and bad. That being said, I also recognize that, just like each one of us, historically and currently, Detroit’s city officials are navigating systems that are fundamentally designed to turn a profit by any means.

Cries of corruption, even when well warranted, without checked by our humanity have historically been used to disempowered existent populations and grab resources. Similar motions have been applied rather openly in US foreign policy and secretly, behind closed doors, domestically for generations. Maybe a move towards negating apathy and lack of concern for others is to raise awareness that this argument is part of the same flawed, dehumanizing, profit-driven logic used to exploit and enslave people for centuries.

I don’t want to be entirely theoretical here. Through sharing in the work of the Detroit Food Justice Task Force (http://detroitfoodjustice.org), the East Michigan Environmental Action Council (http://www.emeac.org/) and other grassroots organizations, I’ve become more aware how open and inclusive space for participation and low-stress and accessible means of action around issues can combat apathy. Taking part in and promoting actions like Metro FoodLand’s 27/27 Campaign (http://www.metrofoodland.com/) can get us thinking differently about how we are all connected and the role we can play in supporting the move away from apathy and towards self-determination. Until we change, not only the way that we do things, but also the way that we think about things, we cannot offer up anything more than a temporary band-aids or extensions on already borrowed time. In order to begin to manifest any self-determination in the face of the current climate we need to shift paradigms and challenge the very institutions that perpetuate not only poverty but also political, economic and environmental apathy.

– END-

March 25, 2012November 10, 2022

Recognizing sacred relationships with land and water through ceremony

From the 2012 archives of my Michigan Citizen columns. Cant find the exact date on it now. Gratitude to those who supported the ceremonies behind this post.

This is the latest in a series of columns discussing the Environmental Justice Principles drafted and adopted by delegates to the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit held Oct. 24-27, 1991. Environmental Justice Principle 11 ‘recognizes a special legal and natural relationship of native peoples to the U.S. government through treaties, agreements, compacts and covenants affirming sovereignty and self-determination’. (www.ejnet.org/ej/principles.html).

I have to thank my co-columnists for their expressions around this principle. Two week’s ago VG’s ‘Environmental Justice through Tribal Sovereignty’ discussed how important it is for non-native peoples to acknowledge the depth of the relationship between native peoples and the government. Last week, Patrick Geans-Ali followed up by extrapolating “the definition of “native peoples” from the traditional one” to discuss the current political and economic crises here in Detroit to highlight long-range historical leaning of corporate serving governing bodies towards corruption.

I respectfully reference both pieces as they greatly influenced my approach this week. Being someone who presents as white, discussing native peoples rights or attempting to compare and contrast the lived-experience of colonization to my own or anyone else is a slippery slope I attempt to steer clear of. From my perspective, defining and interpreting native or any other oppressed peoples’ experience has too often been used as a tool to further marginalize their population. With this said, as I first read this week’s EJ principle I cringed. Thankfully, V’s advice to take the time and make the effort to seek other perspectives served as a point of entry. I found Central Michigan Universities Clarke Historical Library’s Treaty Rights archive (http://clarke.cmich.edu/resource_tab/native_americans_in_michigan/treaty_rights/treaty_rights_index.html) and began reading over treaties between the government and native peoples drawn up around the geographic area we currently recognize as Detroit.

I certainly do not want to imply that a little online research constitutes any depth of understanding of the ‘special’, as our principle deems it, relationship between the government and native tribes. However, in the time spent reading through these treaties, and a few historical documents for context, I found myself thinking about current land use policies and how notions of land ownership, whether governmental, corporate or private, have not only impacted, but also continue to impact indigenous communities. How does the very way we think about land and the way our culture ‘handles’ land, locally, globally and historically serve to carry forward unchecked corruption that fosters premeditated genocide of populations through efforts that range from salvation-based assimilation to straight-up murder?

As I processed and meditated on these rather heavy questions around “treaties, agreements, compacts and covenants affirming sovereignty and self-determination”, I also felt a natural inclination to amplify or ‘turn-up’ my relationship with the Land itself. Questions began to swell around my own relationship with land, the suburban enclaves I grew up in, and the culturally engineered drive towards home-ownership and the american dream. I have experienced personal transformation around these issues due to my shift in awareness of and emphasis on food, both growing it and eating it. This transformation has come hand-in-hand with a deepening of respect for the earth itself. I’ve always supported my instinctual awareness of the phases of the moon and seasonal changes, but as I work more closely with the land, I find that awareness deepening. For me, there is a deep profundity in this process, and while being non-dogmatic in its expression, it has become extremely sacred.

While I cannot claim understanding of a native perspective in any way, I have found this sacred yet non-dogmatic process to reflect the handful of authentic indigenous ceremonies I have been blessed to partake in. While rather challenging to articulate, I have also found reflections of these ceremonies within many of the grassroots organizations and individuals I’ve been blessed share with. When I began to build more genuine relationships in Detroit, I found myself sitting in circles, creating safe spaces, respecting ancestry and progeny, breathing together, facilitating healing, participating in collective imagining and visualizing, amongst other practices which, based upon my own experience, I consider to be emergent aspects of sacred ceremonies. Of particular interest here is the relationship between these ceremonial motions and the forms of self-governance these organizations, communities and individuals strive toward.

Returning to treaties, in particular the State of Michigan’s Treaty with the Ottawa and Chippewa from 1855, I’m reminded that, from my limited perspective, tribal governance is deeply rooted in ceremony. This awareness was kicked in fully as I read Article 5 “The tribal organization of said Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, except so far as may be necessary for the purpose of carrying into effect the provisions of this agreement, is hereby dissolved; and if at any time hereafter, further negotiations with the United States, in reference to any matters contained herein, should become necessary, no general convention of the Indians shall be called; but such as reside in the vicinity of any usual place of payment, or those only who are immediately interested in the questions involved, may arrange all matters between themselves and the United States, without the concurrence of other portions of their people, and as fully and conclusively, and with the same effect in every respect, as if all were represented.” Through this paper-based dissolution of tribal governance, there is also the attempted dissolution of collective and communal thought and deed, which I perceive as being facilitated through the ceremonies related to said governance.

I perceive a link between governance and ceremony that I intuit as being reflected in our ability to work, live and breathe more collectively and sustainably. While a great many of our ceremonies have been rendered highly dogmatic, thoughtful ceremonial reconnection to the earth, through diverse non-intrusive means that respect all faiths, like growing food and cooking together, can empower us to connect with ourselves and each other more directly. While I cannot interpret the experience of native peoples, through reading these treaties I can point directly to a process of cultural assimilation that I see being utilized strategically in global land grabs and in efforts by political and economic interests right here at home. With gratitude, I can also point to numerous successful efforts in Detroit to counter this assimilation by reconnecting to the earth, to each other and to thoughts, words and deeds that celebrate and revere these connections.

I currently find solace from the weight these questions in community spaces, in the often simple ceremonies we engage in, and through my attempts to recognize all my relationships as sacred. Personally, I’m attempting to listen to my intuition around land and water more. After the announcement of the state’s intentions for Belle Isle, I found myself heading out to watch the sunrise from the island. An elder had recently shared that the native tribes used to gather on the island for ceremony and governance. As I walked through the pastures to a space where the land meets the water, I attempted to hold the image of a gathering in my head. I sat and meditated for a short time after making humble gestures to the land and water, and then walked away in the silence that comes with awe, reverence and gratitude. As we continue to build together as a counter to formidable political and economic forces, I feel we should get and stay rooted in our personal relationships to land and water and no matter our faiths or lack-thereof, strive to celebrate them together as inclusive ceremonies of re-cognition of one another, those who came before and those who will be.

– END-

May 7, 2011November 10, 2022

Moving Meditation Workshop: Soul in the Machine

Moving Meditation Workshop:
Soul in the Machine

This was created in 2011 and was supposed to be included in a workshop at the AMC that year, but time was challenged and we only discussed it briefly. 23.

A series of guided journeys that explore the relationship between humans and “smart” technology/media. Based on B. Fuller’s conception of Energy Slaves. This explores environmental justice/digital justice/undoing racism issues through the creation of a personal strategy and “tools” to respectfully, mindfully and more intuitively connect, not only with our technology, but also with the world around us. Includes Yoga specific to unplugging from technology, reclaiming our senses, undo aggressive ergonomic design.

Background
I tend to relate to software and applications more intuitively if I interact with them as though they were sentient tools. With that in mind, I want to share a concept that I’ve been working with since I was tuned into it by FIRST EARTH-Uncompromising Ecological Architecture. <http ://www .youtube .com /watch ?v =DuDkfuziZiI> I submit this as a point of sharing more with the group and for accountability sake. While I find this to be a valuable tool in reframing, I know others could take it in very differently.

I’ve been meditating on the Buckminsterfullerene expression of Energy Slaves and have been “trying it on” as a respectful and just frame for my interaction with technology and resources. You can read extensively about it at the Encyclopedia of Human Thermodynamics site <http ://www .eoht .info /page /Energy +slave> but here are a few quick quotes from the site.

“In culture, an energy slave is an abstract conception referring to the technologic-mechanical energyequivalent that a healthy human youth could do. [1] The lifestyle of any person, in this logic, can be equated with a certain number of “energy slaves” equivalent to the number of human laborers required, measured in human labor power energy units, to mediate that person’s way of life. The term was coined by American energy philosopher Buckminster Fuller in about 1944. [2] Fuller proposed the term based on the average output of a hard-working man doing 150,000 foot-pounds of work per day and working 250-days per year.”

“In 1987 commentary on Fullers energy slave theory, author Stephen Boyden commented that “in the USA, the daily use per capita of energy is around 1000 MJ; that is, each person has the equivalent of 100 energy slaves working 24 hours a day for him or for her…. In some developing countries, the rate of energy use is less than the equivalent of one energy slave per person.” [8]”

This Energy Slave abstraction is helping to inspire within me a greater awareness of just how powerful these tools are, and most importantly, that they exist due to blatant and organized violation of the Earth. I share this as I feel it has the potential to become an important part of navigating my environmental justice work while utilizing resource and soul depleting technologies and platforms.

Workshop Learning and Practice.
These can be offered as breakouts or be imbedded within an agenda

Learning Circle – Energy Slaves using the information above.
Practice – Eye Health Exercises
Tool share – Deprogramming Apps
Practice – Undoing Aggressive Ergonomic Yoga Asanas (seated or floor)

February 11, 2011November 10, 2022

Imagine No Robocop

Many across Detroit and the world have tuned into the latest Detroit Kickstarter kitsch, a proposed Robocop Statue across from the (in)famous Michigan Central Station. You can learn more about it and take in some of the feedback the project is getting from Detroiters at the Imagination Station’s Facebook page. The statue has been written about extensively, but I’d like to shift the focus from Robocop to some blind spots that many white artist/entrepreneurs often succumb to while striving to engage Detroit’s diverse communities and respect its rich history.

First, I’m not a fan. Just to get it off my chest, I’ll share that, if this statue gets built, I’m really not looking forward to going to the park, which is right across the expressway from our home, and explaining to my son the who and why of Robocop. I’ll have to share the dystopian and dysfunctional narrative, mediating culture being a part of my role as a parent, but I’m not a fan of carceral robotics and would like to have that conversation a little later in his life. Though this isn’t my main thrust, I share it in the hope it may reframe the statue for some from the eyes of our city’s youth.

And really, that just leads up to some big questions for me, and they are part of a greater issue that I’ve spent the past five years trying to mindfully navigate, yet still barely grasp. What we’ve been striving towards is the ability to see the work Angela and I share from different perspectives. We do this because Angela and I value perspectives outside of the highly influential circles of predominantly white artist/entrepreneurs that gather and organize Detroit’s return to what we consider to be a rather sterile version of a “world class” city.

We seek these perspectives because we believe that racial disparity is the greatest threat to succesfully co-creating sustainable communities in Detroit. So, how can we, as white artist/entrepreneurs, truly engage? How do we not only share with, but also learn from the communities around us? Is it possible to even take the lead from the communities that we profess to be in tune with?

And most importantly to the here and now, for Robocop and the folks at Imagination Station is, how do we navigate community dissent? Due to the defensive nature of some of the facebook posts I’ve read, I’ve gathered that, with Robocop, the organizers at the Imagination Station have received their first opportunity to hold themselves accountable to community members who have expressed dissent to a project. That’s a tough one. It’s the point where your community engagement policies and procedures are put to the test, or it’s the point where you discover they were there simply as a symbolic green light and good PR.

It’s really a pickle that I’ve been in for the past few years. At Detroit Evolution we’ve made mistakes that we are still striving to amend. I don’t have the answers, but I do know that it takes a great deal more time to engage at the level I feel is requisite to build something that is not only meaningful, but sustainable. Taking time really isn’t celebrated in crowd-based funding circles. And really, it’s the last thing that anyone attempting to get a project off the ground wants to hear, especially white artist/entrepreneurs, who are used to being able to do what they please without being held accountable to anyone.

Here’s an approach: the physical infrastructure in Detroit is broken, which many outsiders consider to be a green light. Projects are planned, funded and executed under the assumption that the community infrastructure is broken as well. If people tried to do half the things that have been done in Detroit in a place with a recognizable community infrastructure, they would be blocked. The issue here is that Detroit’s community infrastructure is not broken, it has simply taken on forms that many don’t see.

This isn’t a radical idea; if the community center is blown out, it doesn’t mean that the community doesn’t gather, they just gather in places that many wouldn’t consider valid spaces. After that it comes down to the fact that many don’t want to see or hear from the community, because it means they need to slow down and not only listen, but possibly stop or shift their project or idea.

Co-creating within a community can be hard on your ego and even harder on your art project. I know, I’m recovering from a poorly organized Kickstarter project that brought our values about community engagement into question as a half-finished Dome. Heck, I’m a white guy who opened up a “Laboratory” in a predominantly African-American city! I’m learning, or unlearning as I’ve come to frame it.

We all have a great deal of work ahead of us if we are going to step into the future in a meaningful, mindful and equitable manner. I think that it can be done and believe that, if we are able to pull it off, it will not look like anything we have seen before. It will take Real PR, real public relations, not marketing or pushing flavor of the week memes.

I encourage the organizers of this project and The Imagination Station to stand strong on their touted commitment to the community. I highly recommend trying to listen to the voices that can’t yet be heard, the ones that you don’t want to hear and, even if it means stepping down or shifting gears, following the community’s lead. I think a great deal of relationship building could be facilitated by mindfully stepping down from this precipice. I wish the organizers all the best in mediating this challenge.