Author Archive
Peace House Community: The Greatest Sacrifice
By MARTI MALTBY Never having been in the armed forces, I don’t have personal experience with the idea of leaving no one behind on the battlefield, even if rescuing them requires great personal risk. I understand it in concept, but I’ve never had to live it out. Only recently did I realize that I get to see others live it out every day that I come to Peace House Community. Many of our community members make decisions that confound anyone from a middle class background. They decline housing opportunities, or move into housing and then get kicked out for inviting all their friends from the street to stay with them. They get into fights with their best friends and the next day act like nothing happened. They buy, sell and barter items from each other in a system that often looks like a giant commune. Most confusing of all, they stick with friends who they know are dragging them down. I hear so many questions that start with “Why don’t they …”, as if people who have [...]
How Phillips Voted: Ballot Questions, Mayor, and Turnout
By LINDSEY FENNER The Phillips Community is split between two wards - 6 and 9. Ward 6 includes Phillips West and Ventura Village in Phillips, as well as neighborhoods to the north, east, and west: parts of Cedar-Riverside, Elliot Park, Seward, and Stevens Square. Ward 9 includes East Phillips and Midtown Phillips, as well as neighborhoods to the south: Corcoran, Powderhorn Park, Central and parts of Longfellow. Ward 6 has 4 precincts in Phillips and Ward 9 has 2 precincts in Phillips (see map of the six precincts in the Phillips community) Charter Questions: Breaking down the charter amendment votes at the precinct level, Phillips voters overwhelmingly voted in favor of Question 3, which authorizes the City Council to enact a rent control ordinance. All six Phillips precincts voted against Question 2, which would have created a city Department of Public Safety. Precincts in Ward 6 all voted strongly against Question 2, whereas precincts 9-3 and 9-4 in Phillips saw a much [...]
Something I Said: Mario and Melvin
By DWIGHT HOBBES The original title of Mario Van Peebles’ Baadasssss! (Sony Pictures, 2003) was How To Get The Man’s Foot Outta Your Ass, entirely fitting for the social commentary his father Melvin Van Peebles’ film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (Yeah, Inc., 1971) put forth in a time when grassroot black America had grown sick and tired of this country kicking us around to keep us down. Indeed, Baadasssss! is a dramatized, making of historic document, looking at what went into Melvin returning the favor and putting his foot in American cinema’s behind, profoundly challenging its cherished tenet of supremacist propaganda. There is a reason, after all, The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense lauded it, in Huey Newton's words as "the first truly revolutionary…" that, in the opening credits, starred "The Black Community," It became required viewing for Party members. There is the same reason Bill Cosby, who’d narrated CBS’ Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed [...]
