Tiny aka Lisa Gray-Garcia is the cofounder (with her late mama, Dee) of POOR Magazine, a grassroots arts and media-justice organization in San Francisco. Tiny and Dee were houseless for much of Tiny’s childhood, evading various systems that threatened to institutionalize, exploit, and incarcerate them. They survived and fought back by remaining fiercely dedicated to each other, creating independent microbusinesses to make ends meet, becoming underground avant-garde art celebrities, and creating POOR Magazine to make silenced voices of poor and indigenous people heard through media and art. Tiny tells their story in her 2006 memoir, Criminal of Poverty: Growing up Homeless in America (City Lights). Continue reading “Community Reparations Now! Tyrone Boucher and Tiny aka Lisa Gray-Garcia Talk Revolutionary Giving, Class, Privilege, and More”
Enough in a College Classroom
Hi Friends,
Have a look at the new article by Andrew Willis Garces describing exercises he used in class this semester to get students thinking about class, activism, and the politics of wealth redistribution.
Enough in a College Course
by Andrew Willis Garcés
This semester I had the privilege of teaching a course at Georgetown University through the Program on Justice and Peace called “Social Justice: Sustaining Activism.” It was conceived as a place for student activists to take a step back from their justice work and the stress of deadlines, graduation and impending debt service to reflect on their commitments to continuing that work beyond their lives as students. In addition to two and a half hours of classtime each week — designed to be experiential and with peer support time built-in — the students were each paired up with longtime local activists to interview, several of whom were invited to present as guest facilitators. Each day was focused on unpacking one topic related to sustaining social change work, like “How Does Social Change Happen?,” “Nurturing Radical Vision,” “Facing Unequal Privilege” and “Emotional/Spiritual Sustainability & Avoiding Burnout.”
Notes from a Wealth Redistribution Consciousness-Raising Dinner Party
Last November, Jess and Dean worked on putting together a dinner party that would function as a kind of group consciousness-raising session about wealth redistribution. We invited a number of friends, several who did not know each other but were connected socially through us and others. The group we invited included people from a range of class experiences and current circumstances. We created the event based on the idea that a key way to make change around wealth redistribution is to start conversations in our intimate circles that are overtly aimed at being non-judgmental and where people can address fears and concerns and teach each other models and ideas for addressing them. Continue reading “Notes from a Wealth Redistribution Consciousness-Raising Dinner Party”
Notes from a Wealth Redistribution Conciousness-Raising Dinner Party
Last November, Jess and Dean worked on putting together a dinner party that would function as a kind of group consciousness-raising session about wealth redistribution. We invited a number of friends, several who did not know each other but were connected socially through us and others. The group we invited included people from a range of class experiences and current circumstances. We created the event based on the idea that a key way to make change around wealth redistribution is to start conversations in our intimate circles that are overtly aimed at being non-judgmental and where people can address fears and concerns and teach each other models and ideas for addressing them. Continue reading “Notes from a Wealth Redistribution Conciousness-Raising Dinner Party”