Today’s my birthday. When my husband asked what I wanted, I told him I wanted to feel young for a day. Spending the day in bed would have been one way to get my wish, but this is not what I had in mind: here we both are, in the grip of hacking colds. As …
I spent decades denying I was an optimist before copping to it, and now—instead of trying to live the label down, I find myself trying to live up to it. I’d say this year has left me with an acute case of whiplash. Turn my head one way, and I see activism at a height …
The demonstrators who are stopping traffic, occupying public spaces, and marching through busy shopping streets want to disrupt business-as-usual in the hope of awakening conscience and action. The tags on every demonstration notice at Ferguson Response tell the story: #WeCantBreathe, #ThisStopsToday, #JusticeforEricGarner, #JusticeforMikeBrown. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area—specifically in Berkeley and Oakland, two …
I fear a new racial climate change and global warming. There are no more poems left for me to write. Every word is now broken in my hand. E. Ethelbert Miller I’ve been a fan of the proposal to make police wear body cameras, but yesterday’s decision not to charge New York police officer Daniel …
NOTE TO READERS: My essay “Living Into The Questions,” leads off the Americans for The Arts’ blog salon about “The Beauty in Change: Considering Aesthetics in Creative Social Change Work.” Please read it and let me know what you think! This is the talk I delivered last night at Bowery Poetry in New York City, …
Here’s the note a friend sent me on Facebook late last night: Arlene, now that the midterm results are in, how can the dreams/predictions that you make in your recent books The Wave and The Culture of Possibility come to fruition? How can Citzens United be overturned and democracy be given back to the people? …
This past weekend, activists streamed into Ferguson, Missouri, for Ferguson October, a “weekend of resistance” comprising actions and events organized by Hands Up United, Organization for Black Struggle, Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment, and other partners “to build momentum for a nationwide movement against police violence.” Protestors marched and staged civil disobedience, shut down …
The work of artists and creative activists can help to create a cultural democracy that prizes diversity, practices equity, and brings a deep respect for human rights to every aspect of civil society. Therefore, the people-powered U.S. Department of Arts and Culture calls on all artists and creative activists to join in the movement to …
I’ve been researching women in the arts and culture for a presentation next week at the Women’s International Study Center’s inaugural symposium. There’s ample information online, and it all tells an unsurprising story (if you’ve been keeping your eyes open). There’s more arts work by women out in the world, and also more work that …
Facebook has been a forest of assertions and denunciations this week. Maybe it’s the company I keep, but almost everyone is posting links at an accelerated rate, and the subject of this battle of citations is Israel-Palestine. I spent a remarkable amount of time reading blogs and essays, but still, I was able to consume …